Ikari Warriors, known as Ikari (怒, ”Fury”) in Japan, is a vertically scrolling run and gun video game released for arcades by SNK in 1986. It was published in North America by Tradewest. At the time there were many Commando clones on the market. What distinguished Ikari Warriors were rotary joysticks and a two-player cooperative mode.[10] The rotary joystick controls were in turn based on SNK’s earlier TNK III (1985). Ikari was originally intended to be an official licensed adaptation of the film Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), but SNK were initially unable to acquire the rights to the film.
The game was a major commercial success in arcades. It was Japan’s second highest-grossing table arcade in 1986, and London’s third highest-grossing arcade game that year. It was also a major breakthrough US release for SNK, ranking among America’s top five highest-grossing dedicated arcade games for two years in a row, in 1986 and 1987.
