Going back to one of those games I had a strong connection with as a kid, Ikari Warriors was one of those games we didn't own for a while. Our cousin, who had an NES before we did, played a ton of this game with my older brother, along with Guerrilla War (another top-down gunner from SNK). It was a pretty fun game for its time. Now I play it periodically as an adult and see it through a different lense.

Developed by SNK, Ikari Warriors was initially an arcade game released in 1986 and was intended to an adaptation of Rambo: First Blood Part 2. But SNK wasn't able to acquire the rights to use the license. Instead of John Rambo (and...another guy), you now take control of the Ikari Warriors, Ralf Jones and Clark Steel, who would later be prominent fixtures in the King of Fighters series, as well as appearing in Metal Slug.

Not much has to be explained about what kind of game Ikari Warriors is, overhead shooters were pretty ubiquitous by this point in arcade game development. The NES port, published by Tradewest, came out in the same year, 1986, and featured co-op. Cool, so there's some similarities between this and Contra right off the bat; shirtless, buff dudes running and gunning, mostly on foot, taking down armies of enemies. I think the first thing I noticed turning this game back on in the early 2000's is how loooooong the stages are. There's only four total, but they take forever to trek through, and my senses begin to dull after a while.

May as well immediately roll into talking about the graphics, because there's a lot of the same terrain you're going to be starring at in Ikari Warriors. Ralf and Clark are naturally identical sprite swaps with different color guns and headbands, and the variety of enemy soldiers only differ slightly. It's not until you reach the late parts of the stages do things begin to change. because the stages go on for an eternity, the brownish-green ground and grey stone walls get burned into my retinas. With so much action cluttering the screen, the game has a TON of flickering. Common for Nintendo games, but this one has it bad, feels like my NES is about to break down from trying to process all the chaos.

As far as the controls go, porting Ikari Warriors to the use of a D-pad leaves it feeling a little hampered. Rotating the arcade joystick made maneuvering about significantly easier, as Ralf and Clark will loop 180 degrees in order to turn completely around. The already sluggish pacing becomes slower, as a result. 

Whether running on land or in water, you move exactly the same speed. If feels like your commandos had their legs cut off at the knees and are traversing by sliding their torsos along with their elbows. Yeah, there's gun upgrades. Have fun using them for the 8 seconds you get to wield them before getting gunned down immediately, or stepping over an errant mine. Getting the tank or helicopter gives you some real firepower, and you're immune to standard enemy bullets, but it seemingly takes one explosion to cripple them.

I may have ripped into this one, and most of my critique about it is fairly common among the retro community, but Ikari Warriors isn't necessarily a BAD game. It's certainly playable, but goes on longer than a game of this style needs to and wears its welcome. Perhaps playing with a second player can alleviate some of the monotony, even if only prolonging it.

The music may begin to chip away at my already fading sanity, that theme (which plays through ALL FOUR STAGES) is embedded in my brain. There aren't any real boss battles, just some larger enemies at the midway points. They aren't even highly aggressive, everything just attacks that much faster than you, you feel fairly helpless most of the time. Yet...I think it's a better game than Guerilla War, which is REALLY unfair and way more punishing. 

overall, Ikari Warriors ends up feeling more average than awful, but treads that line very precariously.