Black Tiger, known in Japan as , is a 1987 platform game developed and published by Capcom for arcades.
The land is under the cruel control of three evil demonic dragons, who descended on a kingdom to bring darkness and destruction. From the ruins emerged a barbarian hero, who seeks to slay the dragons and restore the kingdom to its former glory.
The game is presented in a side-scrolling format, with eight-way scrolling (like Bionic Commando). The player controls the barbarian hero to navigate through eight levels infested with enemies and destroying the levels bosses. The player can find a number of "wise men" who give rewards when rescued. Though the wise man rewards often consist of self-evident "advice", most come in the form of "Zenny coins", currency that allows the player to buy various items, such as an upgrade to their weapons and armor, keys for treasure chests, and anti-poisoning potions. Hidden special items that reveal coins, grant upgraded armor, full vitality, extra lives, extra time, or simply bonus points may be found by attacking certain walls. The player's vitality bar will also increase up to four times as a reward for reaching score benchmarks. The player can also find hidden dungeons in the level for extra points and items.
The Japanese version has a few changes that makes it more challenging than its American counterpart:
Black Tiger was planned for released around October 1986, but programming placement difficulties delayed it. During conversion, the game was one of ten games included in a $2,000,000 deal between U.S. Gold and some Japanese coin-op specialists.
In Japan, Game Machine listed the game as the sixth most successful table arcade unit of October 1987.
Black Tiger received a number of positive reviews. Computer and Video Games put the Atari ST, Amiga and Commodore 64 ports as among the top 20 games of the respective computers of 1990.