Announced for the end of the year on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch with Tozai Games to take care of the development, Irem Collection Volume 1 will allow you to discover or rediscover three shoot’em ups. Two in vertical scrolling released in 1988 (Image Fight) and 1992 (Image Fight II) and the last in horizontal scrolling released in 1989 (X-Multiply). Inin Games obliges, box editions will be marketed on PS5, PS4 and Switch, while the Strictly Limited Games store is preparing a busy collector’s item to undoubtedly sell everything at a high price.
When researching on Image Fight one word keeps coming back: difficulty. Hardcore as possible, this sci-fi shoot’em up goes so far as to penalize the player if he reaches the end of the level having killed less than 90% of the enemies. Specialists easily recognize Image Fight support units in the shape of colored spheres that surround the player’s ship. Image Fight will be offered in its arcade version but also PC Engine (released only in Japan in 1990) and NES (released only in Japan and North America the same year).
After players’ feedback on the insolent difficulty of Image Fight, Irem released a sequel a few years later… at least as difficult. Good. But this time, each transition between the levels is interspersed with an animated cinematic with a dubbing all the more classy as the immense Tôru Furuya (Amuro Ray in GundamSeiya in Saint Seiya) voices the protagonist, Sho, with the same intensity as in said cult works. Featuring seven new weapons and a soundtrack by Takashi Hiyamata and Hiroshi Kimura, this sequel named Image Fight II : Operation Deepstriker will be presented here in its original PC Engine version. And it will undoubtedly be the most popular game in this collection since it is the only one not already present in the Hamster Arcade Archives range.
Ship without gain
Released in 1989 and long remained exclusive to the M27-Arcade format before being ported to PlayStation and Saturn in 1998 in Japan, X-Multiply switches to horizontal scrolling but also offers an infernal difficulty (definitely), without changing the objective: to annihilate the evil invaders from space. There is even talk of an alien parasite capable of taking possession of the human body, which will push future scientists to design a miniature vessel to inject into an infected body and fight the threat from within. Yes, no need to check on Google: the game comes out two years later The inner adventure by Joe Dante.
