“C’mon, let’s FIGHT!” was what the main characters of this 1986 NES classic shouted before unloading their semi-automatic weapons into the jungles of their 8-bit universe. I’m speaking of Ikari Warriors, a rare game I never actually owned. A friend of mine had it but whenever we played, it would freeze on like the 4th stage. My friend was convinced that it was because he had roaches in his Nintendo and I told him that didn’t make any sense. Then, sure enough, one day we were playing and a cockroach crawled out of his Nintendo and the thing froze. I never played Josh’s Nintendo again after that.
ANYWAY, yeah, random tangent. The characters from this game would later be much more fleshed out in SNK‘s fighting game super-franchise King of Fighters. KOF, as it is called by fans, is the main rival to Capcom’s Street Fighter, and the Ikari Warriors: Ralf and Clark have been in all 10+ installments of the game. Clark is quiet, reserved, and never removes his shades. Ralf is loud, boisterous, and takes a swig of beer before each match. The two are military partners and inseparable friends (which of course leads fans to pair them up romantically!)
So yeah, enjoy my version of the Ikari team in all their dangling glory.







































