Sunman (video game)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sunman
Title Screen for Sunman video game
Developer(s) Sunsoft
Release date(s) Never, Scheduled for 1992
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s) Single player
Platform(s) NES

Sunman was a video game created by Sunsoft for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992. This game however, despite being apparently 100% complete, was never commercially released. Also, unlike most video games of this time, it was never even announced. Most cancelled games saw months worth of publicity in video game magazines before fading off the game-watch radars.
Sunman was obtained by The Lost Levels. from a European collector without any information on what it was. It was to much surprise to discover an unannounced, unreleased game that can be functionally played through from start to finish.
The game features a superhero, named Sunman. He is very reminiscent of Superman with his cape, and flying abilities, as well as the games title screen seems to match that of the Superman logo. The gameplay also seems similar to another one of Sunsoft's NES titles, Batman: Return of the Joker. Sunsoft's involvement with other DC Comics character licenses lead some to speculate that that Sunman was intended to be a Superman game, but DC for whatever reason decided not to go along and the game had some changes made to lose the likeness. This specualation has led to further speculation as to why the game was never released, in that perhaps Sunsoft did not want to invest in further time and money on the game to change it enough to not infringe on any copyrights, while at the same time not having a licensed character brand to carry the game in sales figures. It's hard to find any real truth at this point in time, especially for an unannounced game. The game was made available for play as a ROM for use with an NES emulator.