Military Madness is a turn-based strategy game developed by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-16.  Published by Hudson Soft in Japan the game was originally released on February 9, 1989 for the PC Engine under the name Nectaris.   The title was renamed to Military Madness when publisher NEC released a North American version of the game for the TurboGrafx-16.

The game is the first entry in the Nectaris series which has become one of Hudson Soft’s better-known intellectual properties.   Rights to the series have belonged to Konami since 2012 after they acquired Hudson Soft and merged the company with Konami Digital Entertainment.

The futuristic turn-based strategy war game takes place on Earth’s moon in the year 2089.  The evil Axis Empire launches a lunar military campaign to take control over the moon and gain access to its resources.  Using the resources to create advanced weaponry, the Axis Empire develop a doomsday weapon called S.A.M. (Supreme Atomic Missile).

Players take on the role of commander of the Allied-Union forces in an effort to stop the Axis Empire from launching the S.A.M. doomsday weapon to destroy Earth.  The game features 2 campaigns, each containing 16 maps where players must strategically defeat the outnumbering Axis Empire forces by destroying all enemy units or capturing the enemy base.   

Players have the ability to control many different military units such as infantry, tanks, aircraft and artillery to strategically utilize to gain the best advantage to defeat the enemy.  Players move their units into position to confront the Axis Empire in turn-based encounters which are determined by multiple factors such as capturing factories to produce resources and repair units to destroy all enemy forces or take control of the enemy’s camp.

The game was well received in Japan when it launched for the PC Engine, selling over 200,000 units however it did not preform very well in North America due to the poor sales of the TurboGrafx-16 hardware.  A sequel titled Neo Nectaris was released in 1994 for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² and was set 10 years after the events of the first game.  Hudson Soft continued to develop the series by releasing multiple adaptions and sequels in Japan with the occasional release in North America.