Club Retro 2022: July - TurboGrafx CD | PC Engine CD
Jul 18, 2022 13:02:46 GMT -5
Post by Sarge on Jul 18, 2022 13:02:46 GMT -5
Yep, I'm pretty much in agreement with toei here. My thoughts from a few years ago.
112) Kaze Kiri: Ninja Action (DUO) (6.5) (12/9) (~1.5 hours)
Well, first off, the Duo is giving me fits with burns. I can never guess what's going to work right and what doesn't. Gonna try to track down a different burner, none of the four I've used so far have worked completely properly.
Still, it was enough to get me through Kaze Kiri. Apparently a quite rare game, this one tries to be a late-gen classic, but is a little too repetitive to really stake out hidden gem status.
So, at its heart, it's a 2D plane-scrolling beat-'em-up, much like Kung Fu or Vigilante. The game does a few things to differentiate itself, though; your hero has a lot of moves you can pull. Throwing kunai (which depletes your life, oddly enough), sword combos, a sliding kick, backflips, an aerial drop kick... there are a lot of ways you can use to take out your enemies. And really, the whole game revolves around that. Take out a certain number of enemies and you can continue forward to the end of the section. Sometimes that ends the stage; other times, there's a boss to defeat. These play out more like Street Fighter segments than a typical brawler. Still, there are a lot of ways to exploit the AI that makes it not too difficult. That aforementioned sliding kick is one of the best ways to get in and deal damage safely, particularly because you are invincible during the slide.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough enemy types or enough ways to really use that varied moveset. The stages themselves are a flat point-A-to-point-B affair as well, with no hazards to speak of to spice things up. For a game as smooth as this, I'd have loved to have seen a bit more creativity in the rest of the design. I almost think it could've been a sort of secret Strider-esque game in many regards, because I love all the stuff you can do.
It doesn't last all that long, but it's not a good sign when you're already a bit bored halfway through a 1.5 hour game. It's not bad, it just needed more meat on the bone.
Well, first off, the Duo is giving me fits with burns. I can never guess what's going to work right and what doesn't. Gonna try to track down a different burner, none of the four I've used so far have worked completely properly.
Still, it was enough to get me through Kaze Kiri. Apparently a quite rare game, this one tries to be a late-gen classic, but is a little too repetitive to really stake out hidden gem status.
So, at its heart, it's a 2D plane-scrolling beat-'em-up, much like Kung Fu or Vigilante. The game does a few things to differentiate itself, though; your hero has a lot of moves you can pull. Throwing kunai (which depletes your life, oddly enough), sword combos, a sliding kick, backflips, an aerial drop kick... there are a lot of ways you can use to take out your enemies. And really, the whole game revolves around that. Take out a certain number of enemies and you can continue forward to the end of the section. Sometimes that ends the stage; other times, there's a boss to defeat. These play out more like Street Fighter segments than a typical brawler. Still, there are a lot of ways to exploit the AI that makes it not too difficult. That aforementioned sliding kick is one of the best ways to get in and deal damage safely, particularly because you are invincible during the slide.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough enemy types or enough ways to really use that varied moveset. The stages themselves are a flat point-A-to-point-B affair as well, with no hazards to speak of to spice things up. For a game as smooth as this, I'd have loved to have seen a bit more creativity in the rest of the design. I almost think it could've been a sort of secret Strider-esque game in many regards, because I love all the stuff you can do.
It doesn't last all that long, but it's not a good sign when you're already a bit bored halfway through a 1.5 hour game. It's not bad, it just needed more meat on the bone.