Ikari III: The Rescue
Ikari III: The Rescue, simply known as Ikari III in Japan, is a 1989 run and gun video game developed and published by SNK for arcades. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, MS-DOS and Commodore 64. It is the third and final installment of the Ikari Warriors series after Ikari Warriors and Victory Road. The NES version was shown at the 1991 CES.
Gameplay
The weapon selection is greatly reduced from previous games, and there are no player usable vehicles. Weapons are much rarer, which makes the game more focused on hand-to-hand combat consisting of punching, kicking, jump kicks and roundhouse kicks.The NES console version maintains the same character design and the same basic gameplay from the arcade version, but with a variety of enemies, weapons and life bars for the players.
The NES version there is an exclusive fourth side-scrolling shooter stage which has the warriors scuba-diving.
Story
It is the second sequel to the original Ikari Warriors, following Victory Road.Arcade version
The presidential candidate's son has been kidnapped by an enemy terrorist party that opposes changes. Fearing political and internal uproar should the news be exposed, top officials of the candidate have asked the best two-soldier army to secretly take action on this matter.Using falsified tips and information to send the main force of enemy terrorists on a wild goose chase, Ralf Jones and Clark Still commences their mission called "The Rescue". The two brawl their way through the enemy guards and destroys their heavy weaponry patrolling area of stage 1. The main enemy force quickly realized however, that they were given a false tip and hastened their way back to capture or kill Ralf and Clark. From here on Ralf and Clark would continue fighting and advancing to where the captive is being held, with the main enemy army following the pair right on their heels. This would serve as a kind of time limit to the game: If the distance between the pursuing enemy army and Ikaris reaches 0km, Ikaris would be taken prisoners and the rescue mission would be deemed failure, restarting of the entire stage over again where Heroes were captured.
After killing the captors of the President's son in stage 3, Ralf and Clark secures the hostage and requested to be extracted, only to be ambushed by the troops of Crime Ghost and rescue helicopter being shot down. Soldiers of Crime Ghost then recaptured the hostage and took him to further away from the rescuers. But no matter: after venturing into more hostile territories Ralf and Clark in the end defeated all the soldiers of the Crime Ghost and this time secured the captive boy.
But there is one more mission to be fulfilled: Ralf and Clark now must move to the extraction point with the boy on tow, and remaining soldiers of Crime Ghost would do everything in their power to stop them from reaching the rescue plane. And the main army of Crime Ghost still following closely behind the three.
After the final mission succeeded Ralf and Clark managed to secure the boy and rode the rescue plane back to their home country. Regrettably because their mission was a top-secret to begin with Ralf and Clark's heroic deed will never be known to the public.
NES version
Crime Ghost is a terrorist organization which emerged after a worldwide economic recession in the end of the 20th century. Composed of dangerous criminals and disgruntled soldiers, it has already infiltrated most countries of the world to spread its influence, seeking to take over the world and plunge it into chaos and anarchy.The president of an unnamed country decides to fight them, creating a secret plan to destroy the evil organization, but somehow they learn about his plans and attack the president's house, kidnapping his daughter Elise. They then send a blackmail letter to the president, asking him to resign his position in a number of days or else they will have Elise executed. Desperate, the president hires Paul and Vince, the Ikari Warriors, and sends them to infiltrate Crime Ghost's hideout, rescue Elise and defeat their megalomaniacal leader.
Development
The game was inspired by the release of the movie Rambo III, where Sylvester Stallone's titular character appeared more stronger and tougher than ever, and the film properly showcased John Rambo's hand-to-hand combat skills without him rushing to kill the tough soldier. SNK aimed at going that same direction with Ralf and Clark in the third "Ikari" game.While the game still uses the rotary joystick like the first two previous "Ikari" games, an 8-way directional version exists that forgoes the rotary feature altogether, in which the mechanics are similar to SNK's previous cooperative Arcade-to-NES beat 'em up P.O.W.: Prisoners of War.