Submitted by quark60

When you think of action platformers on the NES, what’s the first that comes to mind? Castlevania? Ninja Gaiden? Maybe even Zelda 2? All good examples(except maybe Zelda 2), but for me it would have to be this game. KickMaster. And while those other games continued on into long, stroried franchises, KickMaster did not. Which is a shame, considering it combines many things from those three games into one kick-tacular package.

While the story is nothing to shout about, it does kick off(no pun intended) to a Ninja Gaiden-like cutscene. You are Thonolan, an aspiring martial artist, who must rescue the kidnapped princess from the evil sorceress Belzed with the help of your brother Macren, the most powerful knight. Sadly Macren dies in the opening cutscene, leaving it all up to you. Pretty basic. But its not about the story, its about the gameplay. And there’s lots.

So you travel between stages like Castlevania, but actually play those stages more like Ninja Gaiden. Instead of sword moves you have kicks. While at the beginning you start off with only a basic kick, enemies almost explode with HP, MP, or EXP for you to collect when you defeat them. Collecting enough experience levels you up slowly unlocking more devastating kicks at you disposal. They fly out in different directions though, so you have to choose. Do I go for the experience and get closer to leveling up? Or do I go for the MP so I can bust out some wicked magic? It can be a tough call sometimes.

Speaking of magic, you also gradually acquire different spells throughout the game. Want to be able to walk on spikes? You got it. Stun all enemies for a brief period of time? Got that too. Want to heal yourself, locate items, create a shadow clone of yourself or shoot lighning? Done. The only downside is using your magic too much makes choosing between getting MP or EXP from enemies even harder.

The game isn’t perfect though. If you like fighting a lot of bosses, then you won’t mind the fact that there are around 16 bosses for 7 levels. And while the game starts with a Ninja Gaiden-like cutscene, that’s the only one. I thought there would be more, so that was a little disappointing. There’s some bad flickering when there’s a lot on screen like the giant octopus boss, but it doesn’t happen very often and what NES game DIDN’T have flicker at some point. Besides NES Play Action Football.

Anyway, to wrap it up KickMaster is an awesome game that really deserved a sequel but just never caught on. If you ever see it, don’t worry about the bad cover art, and pick it up. It’s well worth it.

Tags: Kickmaster, NES