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Rambo (1987 video game)

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This article is about the 1987 game. For other games based on the franchise, see Rambo (disambiguation) § Video games.
Rambo
North American NES cover artwork featuring Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo
Developer(s)Pack-In-Video[1]
Publisher(s)
Designer(s)Fukuchan Tokita
Composer(s)Tohru Hasabe, Minky Motoyama
Platform(s)NES[1]
Release
  • JP: December 4, 1987
  • NA: May 1988
Genre(s)Action/platformer,[1] Metroidvania[2]
Mode(s)Single-player

Rambo is a side-scrolling action-adventure video game produced by Pack-In-Video for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was released on December 4, 1987 in Japan, and May 1988 in North America. It is based on the film Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). The game sold 600,000 copies.[3]

Gameplay

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The game starts off with Colonel Trautman asking Rambo whether or not he wants to leave the prison and start the mission. Players are given a choice, but cannot advance in the game unless "yes" is chosen. Players advance through the camp and talk to others, and when talking to Trautman again, he tells Rambo the mission. Rambo then drops into the forest and fights spiders and other forest creatures. Bosses include giant spiders and helicopters. The game has similar gameplay to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. In the Japanese version, the experience meter is replaced by an anger meter; however, it functions exactly the same.

Later in the game, Rambo picks up an arsenal of weapons and fights enemy soldiers.

The ending sequence allows the player to throw a giant kanji character (怒, Ikari:Anger) towards Murdock after returning to the base, which inexplicably turns Murdock into a frog.[4][5]

Release

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In a 1998 interview, Acclaim co-founder Greg Fischbach said Rambo helped bring home to Acclaim the importance of licensing: "I remember having a conversation with a buyer for a large chain of retail stores, and we would bring him titles like Wizards & Warriors, and he would say, 'No, I don't want it. You bring me a name I recognize and I'll buy your title.' So we brought him Rambo and he put it in his release schedule. Now, Rambo was not as good a game as Wizards & Warriors, but that was the way he worked, and we had to deal with that."[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Rambo for NES at MobyGames
  2. ^ Szczepaniak, John. "Backtracking: The History of Metroidvania". GamesTM. No. 116. Imagine Publishing. pp. 148–53.
  3. ^ Schreiber, Paul (October 16, 1989). "Zapping All the way to the bank". Newsday. p. 127. Retrieved December 7, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "Screwed Up NES Crap". www.flyingomelette.com.
  5. ^ "Rambo (NES) Ending". YouTube. 23 January 2008. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22.
  6. ^ "To Hell and Back with Acclaim". Next Generation. No. 40. Imagine Media. April 1998. p. 12.
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