BOLOU FIGHTER (1991)
A late entry onto 8-bit consoles, Bolou Fighter is a scrolling "shoot-em-up" where the player begins with a weak cannon but can find power-ups by shooting numerous enemies. The game begins with four unlocked stages that can be played in any order, each ending with one of the "Bolou", bosses described as "bio-organic monsters of unstoppable power". Defeating the first four stages unlocks a fifth stage where the player is sent to the "Meta-Dimension" to do battle with "Lyca-Bolou"; defeating this monster puts a cryptic message of "Congratulations: The Portal of Time Is Now Yours". The game then re-starts. The player is expected to defeat all the stages again, but this time there is a sixth stage which is a rush of all five bosses all over again. (At the time, many players and reviewers were confused by the abrupt re-start and didn't realize they had to play a new-game plus for the "good ending".) Unusual for an auto-scrolling game, the player can shoot in all eight directions. Although published by Liu, the game's design is credited to "Shiruvu Kora", a name which appears in no other known game credits; so it is unknown if Bolou Fighter was their only game.