Kung-Fu Master

The Good
Mmm,.. maybe it's intense action, the fact that it always keeps you trying to beat enemies or jump over them. I am not sure if I would recommend this game to other people because the gameplay is annoying but it's one of my most favorites on the CPC because I have mastered it so that I can do wild things like jumping over the tiny enemies or a throwing knife while delivering a flying kick to the tall guys, then ducking to avoid another knife while low punching the little dwarfs. And I can play through all the levels and the beginning, where enemies appear randomly and I can make funny moves and beat all the stuff out of them. It's one of those annoying in gameplay, controls and animation, CPC games which if you master they become classic in your eyes! Maybe compared to the other versions from the coin-ops or consoles, this one sucks, but I do like it!

The Bad
Controls: Low key response and collision detection problems at times. Sometimes I have to duck and tip on the fire button, still if the enemy is few pixels more close than allowed, he grabs the player and the attack fails. Annoying if you play the game for the first time. Not, if you've mastered it.

Annoying bugs that can freeze the game: Fortunately these are rare. In the 4th level you can freeze it easily if you try to hit the gorilla boss with any other way rather than the low punch. It's in the gameplay (as seen in other versions) that this boss paralyzes the player in this case. It happens here too, though if you try it many times, bugs or even a freeze may appear. Other kinds of bugs appear more rarely during the game..

The last boss: I never ever understood what is the trick to beat him. When I succeeded into that, it was random! At most cases, I have to tip on the fire button like a maniac for ten minutes or so. Once in a hundred I may see his energy bar loosing a tiny piece. During some plays the possibilities to reduce his energy are extremely less than other times. After loosing for several times and playing the 5th level from start, a lucky possibility might arise. This happens on the CPC version. I don't know the rules in the other versions..

Jerky scrolling: However this is an issue that haunts most CPC games, one that doesn't annoy me much personally. Some people may hate this though, so I decided to mention it.

The Bottom Line
Annoying but if you've mastered it on your CPC you might find it fun and play it several times from the beginning! I believe that if you come from the console world or have played the original in the coin-op, you might find the CPC version crappy and bad. Though, I love it!

The Good
It's a funny game. The storyline and cutscenes are cheesy such that they are hilarious instead of annoying. You're a Kung Fu master trying to save your girlfriend, Sylvia, from Mr. X (5th level boss). The game is driven by the old 5 story pagoda thing, where you have to beat the story's boss to climb the stairs to the next story of increasing difficulty. It's kind of fun going through the varied levels to see the different bosses and such. The 3rd level has a large black guy for its boss, whom my little brother as a 4 year old kid dubbed "George Bush."

The Bad
The worst thing about this game is that it repeats and doesn't resolve. Once you beat Mr. X, your happiness doesn't last long, and you're back at the bottom of the pagoda (with the bad guys moving slightly faster and sneakier). The game just sort of goes on like this until you either die or become so fed up you turn your NES off. The midget boss on the 4th level is also extremely irritating.

The Bottom Line
It's an odd little game that kind of has its own personality that's hard to describe. It has purple guys trying to hug you, little greet midgets that jump at you, and knife guys that throw knives at you, all of whom you must knock off the pagoda with kung fu moves (high kick low kick, high punch low punch, or jump kick or punch.) Then there are the 5 bosses (Sword Guy, Boomerang Guy, George Bush, Midget Guy, and Mr X.) It's a game worth playing, for the experience, but it's probably not the most well made game in the realm of the NES.

The Good
Kung-fu was certainly an interesting game, if not odd. The storyline was quite the same as a dubbed Japanese kung-fu movie, with the fighting styles of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the graphics of Excite Bike.

The basic drive of the game was that you were a kung-fu master, determined to rescue your girlfriend. You must reach the top-most level of the pagoda, while facing enemies and bosses along the way.

The moves you have at your disposal are finely crafted. It has a total of six moves, combining A, B, and the up and down buttons on the D-pad. This is a nice refresher from Ice Climber and Mario, both of which had very limited ways of defeating your foes.

The graphics you do have to give a hand to. As soon as you see then you will be instantly reminded of Excite Bike, Ice Climber, Clu-clu Land, Pinball, etc. To put it simply, the graphics are no more remarkable than any other graphics at the time.

The Bad
The game has some flaws which really bring it down.

The game play, you will discover, is quite repetitive and hard. The only strategy which seems to work is trial and error, accompanied with luck. It took me at least ten tries to figure out how to successfully beat the first level, only to die on the even harder second level and have to restart. Even when you finally get up to the top level and beat the ending boss, there is very little replay value in it. Enemies do not change, they only get faster, and the game will get very old.

The sound is not magnificent for the time. This game, like Excite-Bike, Clu-clu Land, and Pinball, did not bring us catchy tunes that stick as icons even today, like the Super Mario Bros. and Zelda theme. Most of it is NES midis (do not get me wrong, a lot of NES midis sound great!) and are typical of cheesy kung-fu movies back in the 80’s. SFX is not notable here either.

Lastly, the two player mode is not much of two-player mode. Players take turns, which makes it fairly easy for the person not playing to lose interest and wait until you are gone to play one-player. I am fairly impressed at the nice number of co-op games such as Clu-clu Land, and Ice Climber, but I am disappointed at the lack of co-op in other games such as this. Truly two players is not an incentive to get this game

The Bottom Line
The game, while it does entertain you for a while, will slowly frustrate you with its hard, repetitive game play and cheesy music and sounds. Unfortunately, it adds to this with a very bad replay value and a bland two player mode. The game is probably best for those who like to collect NES games, or for someone who had it as a childhood favorite. Otherwise, this game might just collect dust.