Journey to Silius

1990 · Run and Gun · NES

About Journey to Silius

Journey to Silius (1990) is Sunsoft's NES run and gun, begun as a Terminator game, in which a scientist's son battles the terrorists who destroyed his father's space colony, set to a celebrated soundtrack.

Journey to Silius in Depth

In the year 373 of the new space age calendar, Earth's overpopulation has driven demand for space colonies. Jay McCray prepares to follow his scientist father to space colony #428 in the Silius Solar System, but the station is destroyed in an explosion that kills the research team and wipes its data. At his father's home Jay finds a floppy disk holding the complete colony plans and a message asking him to finish the project if terrorists succeed in destroying it. To protect the plans and avenge his father, Jay sets out after the terrorists.

Five stages take him through the ruins of a space colony, an underground concourse, the enemy hideout, a flying spaceship and a factory, fighting robots and security systems to reach each boss. Jay can lie down but only aim left and right. Besides his default handgun he can collect a shotgun, machine gun, homing gun, laser rifle and grenade launcher, all drawing on a Gun Energy gauge, and when it empties he falls back to the handgun. Enemies drop capsules that restore health and ammunition. After the final stage and credits, the game starts again from the first stage. Its music, by Naoki Kodaka, has been widely praised.

Making Journey to Silius

Sunsoft conceived it as an adaptation of The Terminator, but after losing the licence during development it changed the plot and graphics before release. Naoki Kodaka composed the soundtrack with programming help from Nobuyuki Hara, Shinichi Seya and Naohisa Morota; where most NES composers used the digital channel for sampled drums, Kodaka used it for a sampled bassline and the triangle channel for a kick drum. The game never won wide acclaim in the West, but its music has been widely praised. It was released on the Nintendo Switch's classic NES service in December 2019.

Journey to Silius Trivia

It began as a game of the 1984 film The Terminator until Sunsoft lost the licence.
In Japan it is called Rough World.
The American version, released first, shows the hero's face; the Japanese and European versions cover him in armour.
Kodaka used the NES's sample channel for a bassline and the triangle channel for a kick drum, reversing the usual approach.
It was re-released in Japan on PlayStation alongside Hebereke in Memorial Series: Sunsoft Vol. 5.