Ultraman Club: Chikyuu Dakkan Sakusen

Overview

Bandai published this Ultraman-themed RPG for the Famicom Disk System in 1988. It was not released outside of Japan. Ultraman Club: Chikyuu Dakkan Sakusen ("Earth Protection Strategy" roughly) is a Bandai licensed game and the third Famicom Disk System game to be based on the Ultraman tokusatsu/kaiju TV show. The concept behind the "Ultraman Club" was to consolidate all the different variants of Ultraman from his many appearances in the different shows and have the player control a party of them. Unlike the two prior games, which were more action-oriented, this game is a turn-based RPG similar to Final Fantasy. Players could also select each scenario from the title screen, choosing to play them in whichever order they wished - this type of freeform non-linear RPG model would appear later in Dragon Quest IV, though of course it had been common practice in Capcom's Mega Man series long before Ultraman Club's release.