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You are Gogan, a muscular powerhouse with enough guts to enter the Pits of Madness. Your mission: rescue the beautiful red-haired Flare. You are strong, but you also have Sting, a sacred axe to help you battle strange creatures and Jagu's savage cult - through mountain, jungle and cave.

One of the first and best action/adventure games released for the Turbografx-16, The Legendary Axe starred Gogan, the barbarian who was on a mission to rescue his woman Flare from the evil cult of Jagu. Despite the praises heaped on The Legendary Axe when it was released, a true sequel to the game never appeared. There was The Legendary Axe II, but that had almost no connection at all to the original (see this article for more info on that). Gogan never reappeared, and is still MIA to this day.

Steve, Billy, Bob and Cormano, the Sunset Riders, must apprehend Sir Richard Rose and his gang of criminals - dead or alive.

Konami's tribute to the spaghetti western proved to be quite popular when originally released in arcades (as a four-player machine), and was later ported to both the SNES and Genesis - the SNES version being the superior of the two, imo. Much like Capcom's earlier game Gun.Smoke, the heroes of Sunset Riders had to get to the end of each level and apprehend a criminal - usually by blasting the crap out of them. Sunset Riders was never sequelized, though, and as such the four heroes rode off into the sunset of obscurity.

An evil beast has kidnapped their girlfriends and turned Prince Nick and Prince Tom into snowmen! Now they must travel through the fortress to get their girlfriends back... but the only weapon they have is snow!

Snow Bros. is a game so much like the arcade classic Bubble Bobble that most people expect to see a Taito logo on the game. Surprisingly, it's by Toaplan, who are admittedly not known for cutesy puzzle games. They've always been a die-hard shmup producer. But everyone needs a change now and then, and Toaplan delivered quite the addicting little game. Snow Bros. was followed by a sequel, Snow Bros. 2 - With New Elves (???), and a GameBoy game, Snow Bros. Jr. Unfortunately, Toaplan never made any more games AT ALL after Snow Bros. 2, and Nick and Tom - not to mention Toaplan themselves - were lost to the mists of time.

Vicious predators from the far ends of the universe are invading our planet! They're mean and wicked, creating havoc everywhere they go! No one is able to end this turmoil, until a group of courageous citizens known as the "Alien Busters" takes charge!

Alien Storm was once described as "Golden Axe in the future's clothes". That's a pretty good assessment of the game. This time around, three citizens known as the "Alien Busters" - Gordon, Karla and Slammer - have to save the Earth from a marauding band of aliens. Out of the three games that Sega did in this particular style (Golden Axe and Streets Of Rage being the others), Alien Storm is definitely the least remembered. Therefore it's no surprise that after this outing the three "Alien Busters" have failed to resurface in anything...

Only two soldiers are brave enough to step forward. They are Earth Command Troopers RICKY and MARY, the meanest combat troopers in the galaxy! Armed with only a short range combat rifle, they must infiltrate all seven alien ships, rescue the hostages and escape... alive! The odds are against them. The aliens can appear anytime... anywhere. The hostages are depending on RICKY and MARY... and on you!

On initial inspection Alien Syndrome seemed to be another Commando variant, this time set in space. However, aside from the overhead perspective and use of heavy weaponry, Alien Syndrome was a different kind of game. It was a search and rescue - as either Ricky or Mary, you had to rescue trapped scientists from seven different alien spacecraft, and destroy the boss in each one. The game was ported to both the Sega Master System and NES, but after that there was nothing. To my knowledge no sequel was ever even thought of, and Ricky and Mary joined the long list of Sega characters that have been almost completely forgotten.

Gylend, the alien conqueror, has arrived on Earth and has imprisoned your comrades in different time periods! You must travel back in time, rescue your friends and then defeat Gylend to save the Earth!

Time Soldiers was one of the better Commando-style overhead shooters that came out in the mid-'80s. However, in order to make the game stand out from the crowd, Alpha Denshi added the novel aspect of time travel to the usual formula. Yohan and Ben would contend with cavemen, dinosaurs, Roman centurions, Egyptian gods, Axis soldiers and heavy artillery on their quest to rescue their comrades and destroy Gylend. After a so-so port of the game appeared on the Sega Master System, Time Soldiers faded into obscurity, taking Yohan and Ben with it.

Paul and Vince, the Ikari Warriors, are on a mission to save the Colonel from the enemy forces that have captured him.

The original Ikari Warriors was yet another Commando-style overhead shooter. Paul and Vince, two Rambo-esque soldiers, had to free the Colonel from the enemy forces. Things changed a bit in Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road, as Paul and Vince found themselves battling the alien minions of the evil Zang Zip in the future. Ikari III: The Rescue took the series in an almost completely new direction, dropping most of the Commando overtones in favor of a more Double Dragon style of gameplay. After Ikari III, though, Paul and Vince faded away. It was rumored that they were to be revived in a Neo Geo Pocket Color game, but that apparently never happened.

You are Kuros, the only knight warrior brave enough to enter the woods of Elrond. Strong enough to wield the Brightsword. Powerful enough to ward off the demons, the undead, and the caverns of fire. And clever enough to discover where Malkil has hidden his prisoner.

The original Wizards & Warriors was one of the better games to come out for the NES. As Kuros the knight, you had to rescue the Princess from the evil wizard Malkil by braving the forests and caverns of Elrond and Malkil's fortress, Castle IronSpire. Kuros would battle Malkil again in the sequel, Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II, but this time he would have to defeat the four Elementals before confronting Malkil. Kuros returned yet again in Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros: Visions Of Power, where we learned that after defeating Malkil at the end of Ironsword, Malkil had cursed him and he'd lost his memory. Eventually Kuros would regain his memory and fight Malkil, who had taken over the throne of the country of Piedup, again. Kuros also appeared in one Gameboy game, and even starred in the animated segments of the early '90s TV show Video Power, along with Tyrone from Arch Rivals, Max Force from NARC and Kwirk from Kwirk: The Chilled Tomato. Kuros vanished after Wizards & Warriors III, though... apparently Rare has left everything they ever made before Donkey Kong Country in the past.

You are Astyanax, a 16-year-old student at Greenview High, and you haven't had a whole lot of sleep lately. A beautiful girl has been invading your dreams, along with something sinister. She is being held captive; you're not sure where. All you know is you're running late for Algebra and can't worry about strange fairy tales.

Astyanax seemed to be the arcade and the NES's answer to The Legendary Axe when it was released - the two games played almost exactly the same. Astyanax had more of a story than The Legendary Axe, though (at least on the NES - I've never actually played the arcade version, so I'm not sure) - animated cut scenes, a la Ninja Gaiden, were used to move the story along. Also much like The Legendary Axe, Astyanax came and went, and to this day Astyanax himself has yet to reappear.

When New Earth's Master Computer is attacked by aliens, only NOVA, lord of the ancient Power Blade, can hope to battle through to the Control Center and restore the Data Base.

Power Blade was one of the better side scrollers to come out for the NES. It was popular enough to warrant a sequel, although neither of them were anywhere near as mainstream as, say, Castlevania or Mega Man. However, much like a lot of other NES action games of the time, Power Blade was never updated for any of the later systems, and Nova soon faded from memory...