Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
The same year, Capcom's vertical run-and-gun shooter Commando (1985), known as Senjō no Ōkami ("Wolf of the Battlefield") in Japan, had become a major global arcade hit.
The game was also inspired by the action film Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), released as Rambo: Ikari no Dasshutsu ("Rambo: The Furious Escape") in Japan.
In 1996, Next Generation listed the arcade version of Ikari Warriors as number 61 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", lauding the innovative joysticks, play balance, and power-ups which offer an invigorating boost to the player character's capabilities without taking away the game's challenge.
Computer and Video Games enthusiastically reviewed the "classy" Amstrad personal computer conversion, calling the graphics "simply brilliant" and the gameplay "awesomely addictive".
They said that players "won't see better ... probably for quite a while" because "the Amstrad graphics are as close as dammit to the arcade machine and the playability goes off the C+VG scale".
It was initially developed with the film Rambo as its motif, and negotiations with the film company that held the rights had in fact progressed as far as obtaining permission for a licence.
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 2-player mode was implemented out of consideration for the fact that the so-called new Entertainment Establishments Control Law, which came into force on 1985-2-13, banned late-night operation of game arcades and reduced their revenue; simultaneous play by 2 players was thought to give a better rate of return.
In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the game scored a total of 24 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine,it scored 18.64 out of 30, as shown below.
The less successful TNK III, released in 1985 and also from SNK, is the first to have used such joysticks.
A version for the ZX Spectrum by David Perry was scheduled for November 1986 but was never released.
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