365//365: Day 345 – Kung Fu Master (GB)

"A karate chop to my nuts."

When I saw a Game Boy title called Kung Fu Master, I immediately assume that it is the same version of Kung Fu that I loved so dearly on my Commodore 64. The amount of time spent playing through that masterpiece on the Commodore 64 is quite shocking. Whole summer weekends would be spent in my dad’s room with nothing but the Kung Fu Master diskette inside the drive, while I played through a port of that game that, while not close to arcade perfect, remains my all-time favorite version, arcade version counted. Unbeknown to my easily tricked mind, Kung Fu Master on the Game Boy wasn’t that loving game that I had played to death in the mid to late 80′s. It was actually the same concept, changed up somewhat, and contained absolutely nothing positive.

Several things were retained in this build, including left to right movement, pressing Up to jump, only a punch and a kick for your attacks, waves of mindless enemies and end stage bosses with significantly different attacks and patterns, not to mention looks. While there are some changes to the formula, such as the need to jump on top of and over obstructions that lay ahead of you, as well as your travels taking you through several various backgrounds, it retains enough of the Kung Fu gameplay to immediately make players compare and contrast ever element they come across.

Sadly, not only is this nothing like the Kung Fu Master that I adored so much, but it’s pretty much nothing like any game I’d like to be caught dead playing. The feel is familiar enough, but it just doesn’t have any sort of entertaining qualities to it, when its compared to the other ports, or even as a video game in general. You can refill your health every so often, which isn’t necessarily a perk, as everything about this game, sans bosses, can be steamrolled through without breaking a sweat. Boss fights can be an exercise of patience, as they have attacks that happen often and have a vastly longer reach than your attacks. If you can somehow force them backwards and into the back end of the stage, you can pretty much corner gank them with slow kick attacks in rapid succession, defeating them faster than they can take you out. It’s a shame that this trick is pretty much useless after a few bosses, thanks to their attack patterns and obstructions.

Kung Fu Master on the Game Boy is pretty much an obscure game that mostly no one would ever remember. Thankfully, this is the games greatest trait — lack of impact. It flew under the radar for years, and it should stay clear from yours if you value good gaming as a whole.

Rating: 1.6