One Hour Reviews: Game #015: Kung Fu, Released: October 18th, 1985

Developed by: Nintendo, Published by: Nintendo

Introduction & Bias:

Kung Fu is a title that I did not play until I was an adult. It just wasn't a game that I saw my friends own so I selected the title from the massive list of games I downloaded because, hey, it's Kung Fu. I do like me some martial arts movies sometimes and why not give this game a try? After playing it the first time it triggered some memories of the arcade version of the NES game that I witnessed once but passed up in favor of other arcade machines. It always made more sense to me to play games that looked like Nintendo games on the home console and use the arcade as an opportunity to play games made specifically for those arcade cabinets. They were always more powerful than the home console so they brought something different.

I bring this up because on the surface Kung Fu does not look like anything special but once I started playing the game again in earnest I was really able to peel a couple of layers back and get some good gameplay out of the title. On top of that I found out some pretty interesting details about the history of the game and why it exists. Let's get into the review proper so I can share what I learned.

First Impressions & Presentation:

The title card for Kung Fu continues Nintendo's trend of having the fake 3-D text but the yellow and red of the title's lettering pop out and the perspective is correct so good for them. Add to that the Chinese-style border and some foreshadowing of the dragons and the mode select icon in the shape of a dagger and the player is presented with a pretty solid title screen. If there was music playing I would give it full marks.

Pictured: Kung Fu Game!

There is only one demonstration included in this title but it is pretty effective. The demonstration shows the protagonist, Thomas, walking in from off-camera facing to the left. After a brief pause he walks forward and immediately begins to punch and kick enemies who are all taken out in one hit. Thomas has middle, low, and jump attacks and they are all displayed here. Good to know.

Also good to know is how the health system works. Regular pink and grey enemies only damage Thomas when they get right up in his grill. After a moment of awkward staring they are shaken off but Thomas has lost a little bit of health. The other enemy on display is a knife throwing enemy who wears a white headband and gi. Thomas is hit with a knife and while it does significant damage it is far from a one-hit kill. In fact, the player can take quite a bit of abuse based on this introduction. On top of that I learn that Thomas has two extra lives and that there is a timer set to 2,000 Arbitrary Time Units that tick down quickly.

Pictured: Kung Fu Jump!

After educating myself with that demonstration I started playing the game and it plays just like I expected it to based on what I saw. The only thing the demonstration did not convey well was jump momentum. Thomas can jump straight up or lock in for a forward jump and that is easy enough to figure out in the first few minutes of play. Overall the pick up and play aspect of this game is pretty great.

The presentation is pretty simple. Thomas is your Kung Fu hero that looks completely distinct from the pink and blue haired enemies so keeping track of the correct character is easy. Other than that everything is pretty plain with almost nothing to give the player more information or distract them either. The player, enemies, and obstacles all look as flat as a board with only the floor of the fighting plane and its supporting pier-like structure giving the graphics any sense of depth. I will credit the game for taking place on a light blue background which allows the black haired protagonist an easy way to stand out.

There is one other neat detail that I want to point out. The upper portion of the fighting area of the screen contains small banners. The banners have the symbols for 1-5 in Japanese so the player can get a quick idea of how far along each of the game's levels they are. It is a nice little bonus for those players who can at least recognize the characters of Japanese numbers.

Pictured: Kung Fu Counting!

The music is suitable and follows the pattern from Ice Climber of having quick intro themes while taking a back seat to the action during gameplay. The music in this game was provided by Mario composer Koji Kondo. My man. To top off the audio the sound effects offer some punch as Thomas will shout when he attacks and adds to the pleasure the player should get when they knock over some goons. Overall the presentation suits the action without really elevating it to the next level or detracting from it.

Experience & Conveyance:

Up to this point I haven't actually mentioned what type of game this is or the plot. The plot is not revealed immediately but since the game is named after a family of martial arts styles the player should expect this to be some sort of fighting game. Fighting does occur but it functions more as a side scrolling beat-em-up. All enemies other than bosses go down in one or two hits meaning the player's body count is high. The player can proceed left or right at any time which is a nice change from the usual ratchet scrolling found in titles like Super Mario Brothers. Since the progress number banners exist it is hard to forget what the intended direction is supposed to be in case the player gets turned around.

The fighting is very responsive. Pressing the A button throws punches and the B button launches kicks. All of the animations are crisp, fast and can be spammed. The player will routinely be assaulted by three or four enemies at a time and Thomas can attack as quickly as the player can mash buttons. This makes encounters against the normal enemies pretty routine but the knife throwing enemies apply an appropriate amount of pressure to the proceedings as the player may need to duck or jump over thrown knives. After I knocked out over a dozen foes I came across the first boss who has the superpower of using a stick!

Pictured: Kung Fu Tonfa!

The boss is more powerful than the regular enemies by quite a large margin. The player can only get hit by the boss maybe two or three times before dying. To add insult to injury the boss will let out an evil digitized chuckle if they personally defeat the player. The jerk. Making the boss eat his laugh will allow the player to ascend to the next floor. There are five floors in all and the first floor only takes about a minute to complete. This would be a very brief game were it not for one thing: lack of continues.

The player gets three lives to beat all five floors of the tower with additional lives possible if they can score over 50,000 points. I failed to beat the first floor on my first set of lives but then made it to the second floor my next try. The second floor completely schooled me as the obstacles took the form of falling traps and summoned creatures, rather than other martial artists.

Pictured: Kung Fu Trogdor!

Frustration quickly set in for me as I would run until I hit a brick wall, get forced to reset at a game over, and then make incremental progress on following attempts. The process was slow but relatively steady as I learned from mistakes and encountered new obstacles. I fought my way through snakes and dragon summons on the second level along with floating confetti bombs. My reflexes got sharper as I waited out falling obstacles and dodged the boomerangs of the second boss to beat that level and proceed to the third. I was stopped only briefly to get all of the information I needed about Thomas' motivation.

Pictured: Kung Fu Plot!

The last three stages each had their own challenges. Floor 3 added small enemies that needed to be dispatched with low attacks. The boss was a hulking dark-skinned man whose main advantage was having long reach and crushing damage. The fourth floor forced me to dodge and kick poisonous moths out of the air and to defeat a magician who would literally lose their head when kicked in the face only to reappear unharmed to throw more spells.

The final stage gets rid of all the gimmicks and challenges the player to a gauntlet of all three human enemy types until they finally encounter Mr. X himself. Mr. X is a tough customer as he fights with a similar style to Thomas and can actually block some of the player's attacks to mitigate damage. Upon finally beating Mr. X with a jump kick to the face I was allowed to finally free Sylvia so we could share all of our hearts.

Pictured: Kung Fu Romance!

Verdict & Score:

Kung Fu represents a rarity for me as I actually completed the game within my hour of play time. It really taxed me as I tend to have a low amount of willpower and patience when it comes to full-game resets. I managed to smack my head against the brick wall that was the moderate challenge to the game until I got a clean run and achieved my victory. I felt good about the whole thing but beating the game just forced me back to Floor 1 with some heightened challenge. I was satisfied with the game at that point.

Overall the game is crisp, fun, and concise. It may be hard to get a good one-hour bite out of this game, especially when a skilled player can beat it in a matter of minutes. A player new to this title should get a kick or punch or two of fun out of several short sittings of Kung Fu.

With all that in mind I will give Kung Fu a 6/10. Hi-ya!

Factoids & Trivia:

All right. Ready for some trivia? Get this.

Kung Fu was originally developed as a tie-in to the 1976 Bruce Lee movie Game of Death, hence the five levels of the game which ties in well with the so-called plot of that movie. During development the game was renamed Spartan X for its Japanese release. Spartan X was the Japanese name of the movie Wheels on Meals, a classic Jackie Chan flick that was more contemporary to the game's release.

To avoid needing to license the game to the movie studio upon the game's international release the title was changed again to either Kung-Fu Master or Kung Fu depending on the system. To that end, the characters Thomas and Sylvia are the names of Jackie Chan's and Lola Forner's characters from Wheels on Meals. That means in a roundabout way, Jackie Chan unofficially starred in one of the launch titles for the NES. Neat, huh?

In case you were wondering why the movie was titled Wheels on Meals instead of Meals on Wheels which makes more sense; the executives at Golden Harvest, the producers of the movie, got nervous about the movie's title because the last two movies they released that began with the letter M were flops so they meddled and changed the name of the movie. Never bet against Jackie.

Here, have a fight scene from this movie: