Irem collection coming from ININ Games

Irem Collection Vol. 1 will collect three 1980s and 1990s shoot-’em-ups in one release. X-Multiply, anyone?

In partnership with Tozai Games and Irem itself, ININ Games is set to release Irem Collection Vol.1, the first in a series of five physical compilations of vintage arcade games.

Volume one will collect together 1988’s Image Fight, its 1992 sequel Image Fight II: Operation Deepstriker, and perhaps most intriguingly, 1989’s X-Multiply. The collection will be available for PC, Xboxes, PlayStations and Switch digitally, and it’ll also be getting a physical release through Strictly Limited Games.

Image Fight and its sequel are both top-down shooters with pod-style power-ups and a quite frightening level of challenge. The Irem collection will contain both the arcade original and its NES and PC Engine ports, while Image Fight II will be a port of what was once a PC Engine Super CD-ROM exclusive, released only in Japan.

X-Multiply, meanwhile, is a properly obscure beast. A horizontal shooter in the vein of Irem’s most iconic title, R-Type, it doubles down on that game’s biomechanical creatures and visceral body horror. For years, the only way to get hold of it on a home system was via a Japan-only collection called Arcade Gears, released for the Sega Saturn. Interestingly, it collected together Image Fight and X-Multiply on one disc.

Credit: Strictly Limited Games.

More recently, however, X-Multiply has proven much easier to track down digitally, having been released on PlayStation 4 and Switch as part of Hamster Corporation’s Arcade Archives series.

If you’re keen to have physical versions of these games, though, Strictly Limited's upcoming collection will have you covered. It’ll be available as a regular disc-in-a-box for PS4, PS5 and Switch, though there’ll also be a collector’s edition that includes the usual things like an art book, posters, a soundtrack CD, and other nostalgic bits of ephemera.

Quite why Irem and Tosai chose these relatively obscure titles for its first volume isn’t clear; the contents of the other four volumes hasn’t been announced yet, but you can guarantee that the likes of R-Type and its sequel, Hammerin’ Harry (or Daiku no Gen-san) will feature heavily.

There’s no release date for the digital or physical versions of Irem Collection Vol. 1 as yet, though ININ says on its website that it’ll be available to order “soon”.