The late 80’s and early 90’s were a great time for gaming. There was so much innovation an experimentation, as well as many attempts to cash in on big name properties. These were often a mixed bag, with most licensed games for the NES not being particularly good. One company that did produce great licensed games was Sunsoft, who produced the amazing Batman NES games and Gremlins 2. They almost produced a Superman game as well, but the license was revoked, and while Sunsoft tried to salvage the project as Sunman, it was ultimately cancelled.
Another would be licensed game from them would have been The Terminator on NES. It was well into production when the licensed was pulled for reasons that are still not clear but are heavily speculated on. Unlike Sunman, this game was able to be saved. It was rebranded, given a new story and named Journey to Silius. The game, while not super well known today, became a cult classic for its amazing music, its tough as nails gameplay, and its fun atmosphere. There is also the fact that there was a lot of leftover elements of Terminator in the game, both in the code and the music, as well as some of the enemies.
Journey To Silius has not gotten a lot of attention in recent times, except from retro fans. That is something I feel needs to change, as the game could be awesome as a modern game. I don’t mean a big 3D game but a small scale 2D revival along the lines of Blaster Master Zero from Inti Creates ( another Sunsoft game, and in fact, Journey to Silius takes place in the same universe as Blaster Master). There is so much that can be done with the game. Expanded levels, high quality visuals, taking the best parts of the original game that made it fun and bringing it over and so on. In the original game, the first level had attacks coming from the background into the foreground, and this could be one element redone to make the game still challenging. There could be a proper ending and post game content unlike the original game, where it just restarted without much difference.
This is a property that should not be left in the past. With the right tweaks, it could be an even better platformer with the ngatives removed and the story expanded on and moved past its origins.
Plus the music would be amazing, considering how good the original music was.
Blaster Master Zero was proof this can be done, and I hope it one day happens.