Ah, indeed, and if you mention Alien 8, then: "Batman" and "Head over Heels" were amazing as well! I played those to death! haha. And "Venom Strikes Back" is also a non-Japanese very cool and smooth game
I agree. I had a lot of fun playing Terramex, but it could be done better, with low effort using sprites and doing colourful static screens. Gameplay and music, instead, were really good
I think that HAL Laboratory made a few excellent games.
I spend hours playing games like Eggerland Mystery, Rollerball and Hole in One Professional. Not all HAL Laboratory games were that good btw.
Not many western games reached Konami/Casio/Compile/HAL/Sega quality levels... But their concept of game was also very different, so it's hard to compare...
Anyway, I'd say Bytebusters sometimes reached that level (Skooter is a very polished game), Gremlin Graphics (with Desolator and Valkyr), Activision (with Pastfinder, River Raid and Rock'n'Bolt), Sydney (with B.C.II: Grog's Revenge) and U.S.Gold (with 10th Frame).
