Play Ikari III: The Rescue Online

Summary

Ikari III: The Rescue (often just called Ikari III) drops you into a frantic top‑down battlefield where the only way forward is to punch, kick, or grab whatever you can find. The arcade cabinet’s rotary joystick lets you spin your character for those classic round‑house kicks, while an 8‑way version strips away the spin for a more straightforward beat‑’em‑up feel. Enemies range from foot soldiers to tanks and helicopters that barrel across the vertically scrolling screen, forcing you to rely on hand‑to‑hand combat as weapons are scarce and vehicles are absent.

The hardware behind the chaos is a 68000 CPU at 10 MHz paired with a Z80 sound chip, delivering the gritty YM‑3812 and uPD7759 audio that still rings true today. After its arcade debut, the game made its way to the NES, MS‑DOS, and Commodore 64, later resurfacing in the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection and the Arcade Archives releases for Switch and PS4 in 2020. Ralf and Clark, the game’s protagonists, have even popped up in Metal Slug, The King of Fighters, and as background figures in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a nod to their lasting arcade legacy.

Storyline

Ikari III: The Rescue (often just called Ikari III) puts two shirtless Rambos, Ralf Jones and Clark Still, behind enemy lines on a secret mission to save a kidnapped hostage – the son of a presidential candidate. Top officials, fearing political uproar, give the duo a falsified tip to lure the main terrorist force away while they infiltrate the hostile area.

The heroes battle through the first stage’s heavy‑weapon patrols, but the enemy quickly discovers the deception and begins a relentless chase. The game treats this pursuit as a time limit: if the distance between the chasing army and the heroes reaches zero, the hostage is recaptured and the stage restarts.

After cutting down the captors in stage three, Ralf and Clark secure the boy, only to have their extraction helicopter shot down by Crime Ghost troops, who briefly retake the hostage. Undeterred, the pair push deeper into enemy territory, defeat the Crime Ghost forces, and reclaim the captive.

In the final stretch they escort the boy to the extraction point, fend off the remaining pursuers, and finally board the rescue plane. Because the operation was top‑secret, their heroic deed never becomes public knowledge.