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Nemesis 2 (aka Gradius) and Salamander (aka Life Force) on the MSX. Those two arcade games were ported on most systems at that time, but the MSX got unique versions that didn't ressemble the arcade (new options, unique levels, difficulty notched up a lot). I know there was a remake of Nemesis 2 MSX on the Sharp X68000 (Nemesis '90 Kai) with better graphics, but I never had the chance to play it. For most of you guys that grew up with great graphics, those games won't probably appeal to you.
Difficulty was really high, but it was fun.
Nemesis : you had to fight your way through 8 way hard levels, and then when you defeat the "final" boss, you get a message that your home planet is attacked. So you had to fight your way backwards through all those levels again, finally to reach level 0 and end the game (of course with lot's more ennemies than the first pass).
Salamander : unlike the arcade/console versions, you had to choose a flight path after some levels. When viewing the info of the different levels, you could see the ennemy occupation amount of that level. If you chose to fight a level, the ennemy occupation of the other levels would rise for the next choice. You were pretty much forced to take on the most occupied levels first, otherwise they were almost impossible later on. Most Salamander MSX players agree that you need to finish the game in one pass. If you happen to die once, you cannot level up enough anymore to carry on succesfully. To make it even more annoying, once you "finished" the game, you were treated to a bad ending. You were told that you could only see the real ending if you had Nemesis 2 inserted in the second cartridge slot (really, it pisses you off to see that after you battled so hard the first time!).
Salamander was also one of the first shooters I know where simultaneous two player games where possible. And if you were good enough, there were special 2-player bonusses (one weapon where the two ships combined, with player one controlling the ship, the second player controlling the shooting).
One of the most memorable levels : navigating through a mechanical stage, frantically avoiding to crash on the scenery. Suddenly all the light goes out, and you're forced to look at where your bullets stop to find out where there is scenery.
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