Forgotten Franchise - Rolling Thunder

[marurun]

So I got my NES working again today and I plugged in Tengen's (Atari's) port of Namco's Rolling Thunder. The graphics are plain and the control unforgiving, but the animations are pretty decent and the action is fun, if punishing. It's one of those games where you curse the machine but you do get better over time and every small victory is worth the pain.

My early introduction to Rolling Thunder was actually Rolling Thunder 2, the arcade original. It, too, had plain, if colorful, graphics and slightly stodgy mechanics, but it, too, was incredibly fun and HARD. The Genesis conversion of Rolling Thunder 2 is not perfect, but it is good enough. And it's the only home conversion around.

Rolling Thunder 3 was a Genesis exclusive. It's similar to the first 2 games but adds more variety to the mix. It's also difficult but not quite as much so. It's definitely worth a play.

For hardcore platformer fans who like a challenge I highly recommend this series.

[Golgo 14]

I love the clean graphics and sound of the arcade original. There's just something about 1986, I guess. I haven't played Rolling Thunder 2 much and I didn't even know there was a third one exclusively for the Genesis. Looking it up really quick, it looks pretty good! I'm going to have to fire up an emulator for that one. Thanks for the tip!

[Unleaded Logic]

RT1 was tough, but I loved the fact that RT2 had awesome co-op play.

[Jayson]

I remember always playing the RT1 arcade cab at the local comic shop just about every day at lunch during HS. I also remember always being late to my after lunch class because of it.

Such a good game, I really need to check out #3 via Gens pretty soon. I cant remember ever noticing it before.

[ott0bot]

Great series. I really like 3 on the genesis. It's like shinobi went all 007. Great animations and heck...it's even got a plot!