Like my SNES Classic (which I’ll get back to, eventually…) I’m also moving through my modded collection on the NES Classic in alphabetical order from whatever game I started with. Since I started with Kirby’s Adventure, next up? The “amazing” Kung Fu.
It isn’t amazing. In fact, it’s mostly cheap and short.
A port of the arcade game “Kung Fu Master”, the NES version shows its origins well. It is a dirty, nasty game designed to keep you from winning at any cost, with a barrage of never-ending bad guys with a variety of abilities (seriously, screw those hornets or bees or whatever they are. Screw them) and it is meant to get you to master the game’s combat, which is really just “punch” and “kick” with a jumping and a crouching version of each. Its horribly simple. You have very little health, few lives, and the bosses (oh god the bosses) have so much health that even if they didn’t hit like a goddamned truck you would still lose.
There is no story, aside from getting Thomas (the titular “kung fu master”) to his girlfriend after beating Mr. X, the game’s fifth and final boss. You then get to see them kiss and the game starts over. And don’t expect to enjoy replaying these levels, they are the exact same color and layout, just changing your direction depending on where the staircase ends up. The enemies are also not varied enough to be interesting. None of it is interesting.
I managed to get through this game twice in under 11 minutes and then promptly shut it off and will likely never touch it again. I’m sure that, as a kid, if I’d had this game the challenge would have been more worthy and the trial-and-error combat would have been more engaging. But at 33, I’m just equipped to figure it all out and move on. There is nothing engaging and there is no nostalgia to experience aside from “man, remember when video games were cheap dicks?” and, you know, I get that feeling from Bloodborne and Dark Souls and those games are actually engaging, so…
Don’t bother modding this on to your system unless you’re desperate to relive a memory or you are a completionist.
Final Thought
-Mr. X has a voice clip of himself laughing and, actually, despite the looping nature of it, it’s pretty good for an old NES title.
skylerbartels 