Genpei Touma Den

Genpei Touma Den (源平討魔伝) is a multi-genre (birds-eye view action, 2D side-scroller beat 'em up, and 2D side-scroller platform) arcade game that was released by Namco in 1986 only in Japan. It runs on Namco's System 86 hardware, and was later ported to the PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) and Sharp X68000.

The arcade version was was re-released in Namco Museum Vol. 4 for the PlayStation, one of two Genpei Touma Den products to ever be released outside of Japan (here, the game was retitled The Genji and the Heike Clans). The PC Engine port was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console in 2009.

The character controlled by the player is that of a real Japanese samurai, Taira no Kagekiyo, who fell at the Battle of Dan-no-ura, at the end of the Genpei War, in 1185. Over eight hundred years later, he is resurrected, and has to make his way over the Imperial Regalia of Japan - fighting other characters who actually existed such as Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Saito Musashibo Benkei on his travels, as well as collecting the three sacred game items, and defeating his arch-enemy Minamoto no Yoritomo.

This game has three types of stages: Small Mode (standard), Big Mode (with large characters, and usually boss fights), and Overhead Mode (like Small Mode, but as the name suggests, viewed from an overhead perspective). Most stages have torii at the end of them, which are used to transport the player to a different stage. Most of the Small Mode and Overhead Mode stages have multiple torii at the end of them, which lead to different places on the map of the Imperial Regalia; Big Mode stages, however, only have one torii at the end of them. If Kagekiyo is unlucky enough to fall into a pit in any of the Small Mode stages, he will end up in a non-standard Overhead Mode stage known as the "Pit Stage" (from which there are only two ways to escape - and one of these two does not always work).

The game also features the Sanzu River, the place believed in Japanese Buddhism to separate "the current life" and "the afterlife", resembling the concept of the Underworld or Hell. Therefore, mythological characters such as Emma-O, God of the Underworld, and Sun Goddess Amaterasu, appear in this game (the former in the aforementioned "Pit Stage" and the latter in a non-standard Small Mode stage called the "Bonus Stage").

Shortly after the release of this original game, Namco released a physical board game based on it. Then, in 1988, they released a Family Computer version of the board game entitled Genpei Touma Den: Computer Boardgame.

Following the PC Engine port, a sequel was exclusively released for the PC Engine, which was titled Genpei Touma Den: Kan no Ni and released in 1992. The gameplay is essentially the Big Mode from the first game tweaked and expanded into a full game of its own. This sequel was later regionally ported to the TurboGrafx-16 effort and renamed Samurai Ghost. Alongside Namco Museum Vol. 4 and the Wii Virtual Console re-release, this is the only other Genpei Touma Den product released outside of Japan.

Genpei Touma Den is alternately Romanized as Genpei Tōma Den (when using macrons). Genpei Tooma Den is the incorrect decoded form when not using a macron. Note that Genpei Toumaden, incorrectly translated as two words, is the correctly capitalized form of Genpei ToumaDen, the MAME title commonly used online.
 * Game name disambiguation