Japanese Mega Drive Games

[englishinvader]

I've been meaning to explore the Japanese library for a while now, but I don't know where to begin. Anyone have any Japanese exclusive Mega Drive games to recommend?

[ShadowAngel]

Well, they can be very expensive, so keep that in mind.
Most of the best japan games are shoot 'em ups, if you don't like that genre, you'll have a hard time finding a lot of great japan-only games and it gets even harder if you don't understand the language

That being said, the first thing should be Bare Knuckle III, which is the original version of Streets of Rage 3 because for whatever reason the non-japanese version has been turned into complete crap: The story is cut to pieces, there's censorship everywhere (and it's laughable what they took out), outfits and enemy names were changed and the difficulty was screwed up. The japanese version is actually fair, for whatever reason in Sor3 Easy is like Normal in japanese and Normal is Hard with Hard being an entire new unfair difficulty.

Shoot 'em Ups:
- Panorama Cotton
- Gley Lancer
- Eliminate Down
- Twinkle Tale
- Undeadline
- Verytex
- Battle Mania Daiginjō (also known as Battle Mania 2, first game was named Trouble Shooter in North America)

Other games:
- Yu Yu Hakusho Makyoutohissen (a really good Versus Fighter)
- Nekketsu Kōkō Dodgeball Bu: MD Soccer Hen (it's one of the sequels to Nintendo World Cup which should be known by everyone, fun football game)
- Wani Wani Panic (a remake of the old arcade game Space Panic)
- Dahna: Megami Tanjou (it's a lot like Golden Axe, Rastan, games like that but quite fun)
- Magical Taruruuto-Kun (a very weird Jump n' Run where you kick bunnies and use fire extinguisher's with eyes on it)

And if you have some knowledge of the japanese language then:
- Monster Land IV (and it's a shame the game never got a world wide release)
- Langrisser II (the first one was released outside Japan as Warsong)
- Vixen 357 (strategy game)
- Togi O: King Colossus

Then there's the Dragon Slayer series, which had a ton of games between 1984 and 1995 (best known should be the spin-off Faxanadu for the NES) in all kinds of genres. They're usually really good. Sorcerian (Action RPG), Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (JRPG) and Lord Monarch (Real-Time Strategy) where released on the Mega Drive and are Parts 5, 6 & 7 in the series and are japan only.

And one last tip: It's a classic, it's a great game on the NES but stay far, far, far away from Double Dragon 2: The Revenge. It might look tempting but Palsoft absolutely dropped the ball on this conversion. It's horrible.

[englishinvader]

I'm playing them via emulation. Here are a few that I've come across on my own:

Aah! Harimanda - I know this from the Game Gear. Sumo wrestling sim.

Puyo Puyo 2 - I know this from both the Game Gear and the Saturn. Think Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine only a lot faster and with amazing graphics and sound.

Herzog Zwei - title caught my eye while watching Ninjabearhug's collection video. A bit like Combat on the Atari 2600 only a lot more advanced and you can play against the computer.

Darius 2 - decent shoot-em-up, but not as good as Eliminate Down (thanks for the recommendation).