Main

What's New

Import Stores

Import Reviews

Import Cover Archive

Special Features

Games

The Top 100

Video Game Fiction

Wanted!

Acknowledgements

Forum

Links

There was an investigator of the paranormal, a young psychologist named Ferdinand Social. On the night of the full moon, he received a mysterious message while using his Ouija Board.

Sega's lone atempt to clone Castlevania for the SMS (no, I don't consider Kenseiden to be a CV clone) featured intrepid psychologist Dr. Ferdinand Social trying to get to the bottom of a mystery in 19th-century London. Even though MoD copied Castlevania in so many respects, there was enough different about the game to help it stand out from your average CV clone. Master Of Darkness remained relatively unknown, despite being released all over the world, and became a bit of a sleeper title for Sega. However, a sequel to MoD never appeared, and Dr. Social soon faded away into obscurity.

You are Albatross, an agent of Rolling Thunder, and your mission is to stop the criminal organization Geldra.

They were the original video game secret agents. Albatross first appeared in the classic Namco arcade game Rolling Thunder, trying to stop the terrorist organization Geldra from taking over the world. Leila, who was captured by Geldra in Rolling Thunder, returns as a playable character in Rolling Thunder 2. After RT 2, though, they both vanished - aside from a brief mention at the beginning of Rolling Thunder 3. Much like Splatterhouse, Namco seems to have dropped Rolling Thunder in favor of more "modern" games.

By destroying the top two links in the chain of command, Geldra should be permanently eliminated. So who is this third agent? He's a new guy who goes by the name Jay.

According to the story of Rolling Thunder 3, Albatross and Leila are busy with the Geldra case, but an agent is needed to take out a character called Dread. Enter Jay. This is the only Rolling Thunder game he appeared in (on a side note, I've heard that RT 3 was never released in Japan for some unexplained reason). After RT 3 he vanished completely. There was another secret agent named Ellen that you could play as, but only by entering the password GREED. She too was never seen again after RT 3.

Alisia Dragoon is the daughter of the mage that once contained Baldour. Her father was tortured and killed before her very eyes when she was young. Alisia is now of age and possesses power that rivals her father. Fueled by anger over his death and the desire for revenge, Alisia treks out to battle Baldour.

Alisia Dragoon was a Valis-esque platformer released in 1992 for the Sega Genesis. Alisia was a magic using, monster summoning heroine on a quest to destroy the demon that killed her father. This was one of the only cartridge games by Game Arts that was released in the U.S. (most of the other Game Arts games released in the U.S. were released on the Sega CD). Unfortunately, like so many of the other great platformers that were released for the Genesis, it didn't do as well as Sega hoped, and Alisia soon vanished into obscurity.

Armed with their anti-gravitational units, invincible satellites, and a never-say-die attitude, these warriors, the Nameless Ones, face the alien invaders to restore the name of Earth to the... Forgotten Worlds.

The Nameless Ones were the heroes of Capcom's Forgotten Worlds. Their goal was to save the Earth from the aliens that had conquered it and turned it into the Dust World. According to the story, the two Nameless Ones (one white guy and one black guy) were raised by a group of human resistance fighters for the sole purpose of destroying the aliens. The game itself seemed to be a followup to Capcom's earlier shooters Section Z and Sidearms, but there were no connections to either games other than the fact that all three were side scrolling shooters. Other than a brief cameo appearance made by one of the Nameless Ones in Marvel Vs. Capcom (the white guy, under the name Unknown Soldier), neither of them have been seen since.

Inspired by the faintest of hope, the Master resolved to battle The Evil One so that peace and order might once again prevail. With the final preparations made, the Master took down the barrier protecting the Sky Palace and silently began his mission to destroy The Evil One's hold on his Earth.

Finally, here was the first game that let you step into the shoes of a god and get up close and personal with the evil you had to destroy. The Master was actually a ball of holy power that flew down out of the Sky Palace and brought a statue of a warrior (supposedly created in the Master's image by the people that worshipped him) to life. From there, it was just a matter of destroying the evil (led by a demon called Tanzra) inhabiting the land in sidecrolling sequences which played a lot like Rastan. In the first Actraiser, you would also take control of a Cherub to destroy demons in the overhead "building" sequences that were somewhat similar to the game Populous, the original god sim. After the somewhat lackluster Actraiser 2, the Master was put to rest... rumors of an Actraiser 3 were tossed around for years, but it never appeared.

Ten years back, his master Mifune was permanently disabled by the Black Knight Axle Gear. Sparkster arrived in the Kingdom of Zebulos after searching all over for Axle Gear, upon whom he seeks revenge. He poses as a wandering outlaw, but is in fact a strong defender of justice.

Sparkster was the star of one of the first games Konami produced for the Sega Genesis. Entitled Rocket Knight Adventures, it was largely ignored at a time when mascot games were seemingly everywhere. It wasn't completely ignored, however, and did sell well enough that Konami decided to bring Sparkster back in a second game. Somewhere along the line, though, Sparkster ended up in two completely different games on two competing systems - yet both game had the same title, Sparkster. After that, Sparkster virtually disappeared. He did appear in a quick cameo in the Sega CD version of Snatcher (check out the pic of him in the Outer Heaven nightclub along with several other Konami characters here), in the amusement park of the Super Famicom game Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shougun Matsuginesu and recently had a cameo in the PS2 game Contra Shattered Soldier. Other than those two cameos, however, Sparkster has yet to resurface.

"Super Joe" and your skill must defeat the evil enemy army. Armed with a rifle and limited grenades, your assignment is to rescue hostages and keep the evil army from controlling the world.

Super Joe was the original video game super soldier. Commando set the standard for overhead "South American Commando Slaughter"-style shooters, such as SNK's Ikari Warriors and Data East's Bloody Wolf. Super Joe himself only appeared in the original Commando - a sequel was produced, but it featured a team of three mercenaries rather than Super Joe. Super Joe also made a cameo in the NES game Bionic Commando. He had been captured by an organization called the "Badds" after trying to stop them from setting their master plan into motion, and the Bionic Commando (sometimes called Radd or Ladd Spencer) had to go behind enemy lines, stop the "Badds" and rescue Super Joe. Super Joe hasn't been seen since the ending of Bionic Commando, but the original Commando was released as part of the Capcom Generation series in Japan and Europe. Other than that, Super Joe remains MIA.

I command you to rise from your grave and rescue my daughter.

Altered Beast, released by Sega in arcades in 1988, was a fairly big hit. It was popular enough that when Sega released the Genesis in the U.S. in the fall of 1989, Altered Beast came packaged with it. The Centurion that you took control of was brought back to life at the beginning of the game by Zeus, king of the gods. He commanded the Centurion to go forward and rescue his daughter Athena from the evil god Neff. The Centurion would transform into various werebeasts throughout the game by picking up three spirit balls, each one making him bigger and more muscular until the third transformed him completely into a werebeast (hence the title of the game). Despite the popularity of the game, it was replaced as the Genesis pack-in by the even more popular Sonic The Hedgehog just two years later. Sega recently created a sequel, Altered Beast: Guardian Of The Realms for the Game Boy Advance; however, a new character takes the lead role. The Centurion remains MIA.

Welcome to the dark future of Earth. The last hope of mankind rests in the hands of an elite force of cyborgs code named: Run Sabers. Created with a superior strength, powers, and abilities, these warriors are sent against impossible odds to stop a warped scientist from fouling the entire planet.

Run Saber was, for all intents and purposes, an SNES version of the legendary Capcom arcade game Strider. Using near identical play mechanics and new innovations, Run Saber was the game that Strider fans that only owned an SNES wanted. Allen (the Thunder Saber) and Sheena (the Ice Saber) could easily have been Striders themselves, as they certainly looked and acted the part. However, the game didn't do very well and was never sequelized, so Allen and Sheena faded into obscurity.