Genpei Touma Den

Genpei Tōma Den is a beat 'em up arcade game that was released by Namco in 1986 only in Japan. It runs on Namco System 86 hardware, and was later ported to the NES, TurboGrafx-16 and Sharp X68000 platforms. It was also included in the fourth volume of the Namco Museum series for the PlayStation under the name of The Genji and Heike Clans - along with another of Namco's Japan-exclusive titles, the horizontal scrolling shooter Ordyne.

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 800 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 along the way. His ultimate goal, however, is to defeat his arch-enemy Minamoto no Yoritomo.

The 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 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 Small Mode and Overhead Mode stages have multiple torii at the end of them which lead to different routes on the map; Big Mode stages, however, only have one torii at the end of them.

The game also features the Sanzu River, a 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 the game.

Shortly after the original release of the game, Namco released an RPG-style board game under the same name. Then, in 1988, they released a Famicom version of the board game entitled Genpei Tōma Den: Computer Board Game. Instead of platforming like its arcade counterpart, its primary focus was on turn-based fighting.

A sequel named Genpei Tōma Den: Kannoni was released in 1992 for the NEC PC-Engine. Surprisingly enough, this game was also released in the United States under the name of Samurai Ghost. It was the first and only game in the series to ever be released outside of Japan, until the fourth volume of Namco Museum was released worldwide.