Bravoman

In Bravoman, the player controls the titular character, a bionic superhero who possesses telescopic limbs, in his mission to stop the evil scientist Dr. Bomb from taking over the world. Bravoman can punch, kick, and headbutt enemies to defeat them; the game uses pressure-sensitive buttons, where the harder the button is pressed, the stronger the player's attack is. Bravoman can also jump over enemies and other obstacles in his way.

He also has a health meter at the bottom-left of the screen, which will deplete when he is hit by an enemy or projectile. Most enemies leave behind small items known as "Fuku" when defeated. Collecting ten Fuku will cause Bravoman's robotic friend Lottery Man to appear, who will give him a random powerup item. These include rice balls and noodles that will refill a portion of his health, a star that gives him the ability to fire atomic blasts from his fists, a drink that grants temporarily invincibility, and a bullet train that will warp him to the end of the level.

The storyline in Bravoman is told through the game's attract mode sequence, alongside various pieces of promotional material. When Japanese car insurance salaryman Hitoshi Nakamura is walking home one day, he encounters a strange, humanoid-like alien named Alpha Man, who claims to be from the planet Alpha. He informs Nakamura of a mad scientist named Dr. Bomb, who plans to destroy Earth and enslave the human race through his army of robots and a deadly superweapon.

Alpha hands Nakamura three items; a metal rod, a tuning fork, and a ¥100 coin, which transforms him into Bravoman, a bionic tokusatsu superhero who possesses telescopic limbs. Bravoman and Alpha Man set out to stop Dr. Bomb and prevent him from taking over the world.

Bravoman was the creation of Namco composer Norio Nakagata, who joined the company in the mid-1980s. He had previously directed the arcade game Genpei Tōma Den (1986), a hack and slash platform title that is claimed to be an early precursor to Bravoman. His goal for the project was to create an arcade game based on things he personally enjoyed, such as synthesizer music and films from the 1930s. Nakagata was heavily inspired by Japanese tokusatsu movies and kaiju monsters such as Godzilla.

Much of the game's content was made to parody common tropes found in tokusatsu films and other video games. Toei Animation assisted in character design and sprite animation, after taking an interest in the game's anime-like artstyle and characters. Bravoman is Namco's only video game to utilize pressure-sensitive buttons, where the harder the player pushed them the stronger their attack was in the game. These buttons were notoriously faulty and fragile, to the annoyance of Namco technicians.

Bravoman received high praise when it was first released in arcades. The video game publication Gamest gave it several awards, including 3rd Grand Prize, 3rd Best Ending, and 12th Annual Hit Game. In their 1991 mook The Best Game, they commended its gameplay for being fun and balanced in terms of its difficulty, and also praised the parodies and spoofs of Japanese pop culture and movies. They also liked the game's level variety, randomness, and colorful graphics. The character of Bravoman was given the first place award for Best Character based on reader vote, while the game itself was placed at the 23rd spot for the best arcade games of all time up to that point.

The TurboGrafx-16 conversion received more mixed coverage. Japanese magazine Monthly PC Engine said it was an excellent port of the arcade original, and liked its new levels and refinements to the gameplay. Maru PC Engine also liked the port for its accuracy, but criticized its difficulty for being too high and making the game unnecessarily frustrating. Famitsu applauded Namco for their efforts in translating the arcade game to an underpowered console, but criticized the difficulty for being too high and the new levels for sometimes being frustrating or overly long.

A sequel titled Kaettekita Bravoman was in development around the late 1980s. It was to feature Bravoman, now divorced, unemployed, and homeless, fighting to win back the love of his wife and return to his former glory. It was scrapped during the concept stages as the team was not sure if the concept would work as a game.

An arcade spin-off, Pistol Daimyo no Bōken, was released in Japan in 1990. Starring the titular Pistol Daimyo, a boss from Bravoman, it is a horizontal-scrolling shooter notable for its outlandish theme and strange character designs. Bravoman appears as a playable character in the 2005 PlayStation 2 game Namco x Capcom, developed by Monolith Soft, where he is paired up with Wonder Momo; Waya-Hime also appears in the game, first as an enemy then later as a playable character. Bravoman is also featured in the tactical role-playing game Namco Super Wars for the WonderSwan Color.