Strictly Limited Games Announces the Five Volume Irem Collection - Hardcore Gamer
One of the great arcade developers of the 80s was a little company called Irem. It’s best known for R-Type but at the time it put a good number of hits, including Moon Patrol, Kung-Fu Master, Kid Niki, 10 Yard Fight, and many more including the cult classic Ninja Baseball Bat Man. Irem operated in the arcades from the late 70s, making it one of the earliest pioneers of the new medium, all the way through the 1994, and kept busy on consoles for a long time after that. It’s a company with history, and a large chunk of that is being preserved with Strictly Limited Games’ five-volume set The Irem Collection.
The first volume’s games have been announced today and it’s off to a good start with Image Fight, Image Fight 2, and X Multiply. The vertical shooter Image Fight comes in three versions- arcade, NES, and PC Engine/Turbografx, while Image Fight 2 was PC Engine-exclusive and the horizontal shooter X Multiply only ever got an arcade release. The other four volumes, however, are only filled with potential at the moment. Will we get the not-really-legendary-but-close-enough Ninja Baseball Bat Man? Moon Patrol seems a no-brainer but how about In the Hunt or R-Type Delta? Wonderfully-weird photography games Gekisha Boy and its PS2 sequel? Even taking into account Atlus has R-Type Final 2 and 3 plus the R-Type Tactics games while Limited Run Games has the original Hammerin’ Harry, there’s a lot of games to choose from in Irem’s history.
The physical editions of the first volume go on sale this Saturday, 6PM EST April 29 (actually 12AM CEST Sunday April 30, which should be the same thing if I calculated right), for PS4, PS5, and Switch, with digital editions also being made available for those consoles plus Xbox One.
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