I always find it quite fascinating when games have identical titles but are otherwise completely unrelated. This mostly happened in the early days of gaming, but I’m sure there are also some modern examples.
So very very strange the same company re-used a title for a completely separate game in another region… and for a game developed partly to cash in on the recent Dracula movie (compare the typeface to the Coppola movie poster) it was so strange to drop the Dracula name from the game, when it was the Japanese title of the series…
I owned the Commodore 64 game and liked it, mainly because of its rather grim atmosphere and challenging gameplay. You’ve only got one life to beat the game, so one single mistake could spell your doom. Suffice to say I’ve never completed it, like so many impossibly hard C64 games.
Also, I thought the box art was pretty damn metal!
Dante’s inferno is a book/poem/political commentary from Italy, as Dante makes his way through hell, purgatory and eventually heaven, so it’s not surprising to see something using the concept as a game. I played DI n the PS3 and quite enjoyed it, I was unaware of one on the C64 though. Might have to have a gander.
After playing the more recent one, I was inspired enough to find the book. It was… challenging, not what I would class a casual reader for the bog. Still somewhat interesting and its the basis for many of the average imagery we have for heaven/hell today.
Konami’s Vendetta game is an excellent beat 'em up. I have yet to play the System 3 Vendetta game, but that one’s also supposed to be really good.
If there’s one thing I’d love to see a re-release of, it’s System 3’s home computer output. I’d pay good money for a collection featuring Vendetta, the Last Ninja games, the International Karate games, Myth, Dominator, Turbo Charge, Bangkok Knights, Flimbo’s Quest and Tusker!
I loved that arcade game and when I heard about Vendetta on the C64 I was super excited, and then a little disappointed. But C64 Vendetta wasn’t bad. I just had no idea how to progress…
Fun bit of trivia for this game: BreakThru is commonly attributed to being designed by Alexey Pajitnov, who also originally designed Tetris. However, despite Pajitnov’s name and face being on the game’s title screen and box art, the PC version of the game clearly states that he only “endorses” it and his only actual credits for the game is a “Special Thanks”.
Thanks to the Halloween thread I found out about a game called Virus for the Saturn. Just so happens that I used to love playing Virus for the Amiga back in the day, completely different games.
