Play Bokosuka Wars Online

Bokosuka Wars came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1984, developed and published by ASCII Corporation. It was one of those early NES titles that felt experimental, a strategy game trying to find its place on a console still defining its library. You don't see many games like it from that time, which makes it a curious piece of history, even if it's not widely remembered today.

You control King Suren and his army, moving them screen by screen across a map to defeat the evil Ogreth. The main goal is to reach the enemy castle, but every soldier you command is precious; if the king dies, it's an immediate game over. Two mechanics define the experience: you can bump into trees to resurrect fallen units, and combat is a simple matter of touching enemies to initiate an automatic fight. The pacing is slow and deliberate, the difficulty is punishing, and every decision carries weight. It feels like carefully nursing a fragile flame through a very long, dark tunnel.