1990-03-16
Ikari III: The Rescue is a military-themed two-player overhead brawler from SNK. Unlike its predecessors, it's not an overhead shooter, although there are shooting segments in the form of boss fights. In true Ikari fashion, it's intensely difficult, although nowhere near as hard as the original Ikari Warriors.
The protagonists from Ikari Warriors, Ralph and Clark, also appear in other SNK games like King of Fighters and Metal Slug. The arcade version of this game had a special joystick that you used to rotate your character that was obviously impossible to do on the NES.
Ikari III looks and sounds great, has tight controls, and a steep difficulty curve that'll turn off all but the most hardcore gamers. This is a game that you play repeatedly to memorize each stage. The gun-based boss battles are a cool change of pace but are generally a lot easier than the rest of the game. The enemy variety is poor.
