P.O.W. Prisoners of War is a side-scrolling beat ‘em up video game developed and published by SNK.   Released in 1988, the game was initially developed for the arcade and was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System the following year.

Players are placed in control of the captain of the Army Special Forces Unit “M” who has been imprisoned by the enemy forces GOON (Government of Offensive Network).   In order to infiltrate GOON and eliminate their leaders the captain of the Army Special Forces Unit allowed himself to be captured and imprisoned to execute a strategic plan to attack the enemy from behind enemy lines.

The game starts as the captain begins to execute his plan of attack by escaping the prison cell.   Gameplay begins as players takes control of the captain and starts fighting their way through the enemy’s camp.  The game consists of four stages, a POW camp, a warehouse, a jungle and the enemy’s base.  The arcade game features a multiplayer mode allowing a second player to escape from the military prison along with the captain of the Special Forces and to fight along his side to stop the enemy forces.

SNK ported the arcade game to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989, releasing first in Japan as Datsugoku: Prisoners of War.  Unlike the arcade version of the game the Nintendo Entertainment System’s adaptation did not feature a multiplayer mode.   The port was a single player experience but retained the same premise as the arcade version.  Along with the removal of two player co-op the port also had to alter the control of the characters due to the Nintendo Entertainment System’s controller lacking a third action button.  The majority of the moves were retained by the addition of button combination such as pressing B and A simultaneously to preform a jump kick.   Other actions were preformed by using similar button combinations with only the headbutt attack not being included in the Nintendo Entertainment System adaptation of the game.