Spartan X
Main game
2.90 average rating based on 121 ratings
- Developers
- Irem
- Publishers
- Data East USA
- Franchises
- Spartan X
- Series
- Spartan X
- Platforms
- Arcade
- Genres
- Hack and slash/Beat 'em up
- Themes
- Action
Release Dates
User Stats
How Long Is Spartan X?
Related Content
NES Lookback - Kung-Fu
This review is for the Nintendo Entertainment System version
One of the original "black box" titles for the NES, Kung-Fu was based off of the Chinese cult action-comedy "Wheels on Meals", one of Jackie Chan's first roles. In the movie, he plays Thomas, who works as a food delivery guy. He meets Sylvia, falls in love, and in the end has to save her from being kidnapped from a gang. The climax of the movie is when he climbs the stairs of the building she is held hostage in, fighting hordes of enemies before proceeding to the next floor.
That is basically what this game is. You play as Thomas, and you go from right to left, defeating enemies, before taking on a boss. Beat him, you climb the stairs, and then go from left to right doing the same thing. You do this for five levels and after you beat these levels, the game loops again with harder difficulty.
This game is simple, bare bones action. It's easy plug in and play fun. The challenge level is fair and reasonable. It set the stage for the beat 'em up genre, and could be called the Grandfather for games like Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets of Rage.
For …
One of the original "black box" titles for the NES, Kung-Fu was based off of the Chinese cult action-comedy "Wheels on Meals", one of Jackie Chan's first roles. In the movie, he plays Thomas, who works as a food delivery guy. He meets Sylvia, falls in love, and in the end has to save her from being kidnapped from a gang. The climax of the movie is when he climbs the stairs of the building she is held hostage in, fighting hordes of enemies before proceeding to the next floor.
That is basically what this game is. You play as Thomas, and you go from right to left, defeating enemies, before taking on a boss. Beat him, you climb the stairs, and then go from left to right doing the same thing. You do this for five levels and after you beat these levels, the game loops again with harder difficulty.
This game is simple, bare bones action. It's easy plug in and play fun. The challenge level is fair and reasonable. It set the stage for the beat 'em up genre, and could be called the Grandfather for games like Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets of Rage.
For some reason, the game hasn't been rereleased in a long time. It never released on any iteration of the Virtual Console, it was missing from the NES Classic mini and it's not a part of the Switch Online service. Maybe it has to do with licensing, although this version of the game was not technically licensed, so I'm not sure why we haven't seen it in a while.
Again, a very simple, but fun, action game. A solid 3 stars.
Bad Controls and Difficult Gameplay
A two combination that can easily result into making one of the worst games Ever. Here we have Kung-Fu, an NES launch title that can certainly be one the worst, yet it has some redeeming quality.
If you know what you're doing and got a hangover the controls, This game can be rewarded, but in many ways you'll find yourself battling with the controls and pressing the wrong button all day, you'll get tired of it quickly.
Can't Find it much fun with all the High difficulty and the clunky controls.
Beat the easier A mode. The 1st stage was simple. Stage 2 introduced annoying platforming and was where I had to slow the speed down. Stage 3 had a very difficult boss with devastating high or low attacks. There was an element of reading the tell to know whether to duck or jump but even at 40 frames per second I found it too fast to pull off. Instead I held down turbo low kick and loaded the state until I randomly won. I had to look up how to beat the stage 4 boss because he was immune to everything except low punches. The final boss seemed similar to the stage 3 guy in that I tried to counter high or low but ended up just randomly burning him down in seconds after repeated attempts.
I had this on my 31 in 1 cartridge back in the day and remember playing it periodically. I don't think I ever got further than stage 2. Back then this game was kinda fun for very short periods at a time but too simple, repetitive and difficult to play for long. I can appreciate it more now as an adult but it is …
Beat the easier A mode. The 1st stage was simple. Stage 2 introduced annoying platforming and was where I had to slow the speed down. Stage 3 had a very difficult boss with devastating high or low attacks. There was an element of reading the tell to know whether to duck or jump but even at 40 frames per second I found it too fast to pull off. Instead I held down turbo low kick and loaded the state until I randomly won. I had to look up how to beat the stage 4 boss because he was immune to everything except low punches. The final boss seemed similar to the stage 3 guy in that I tried to counter high or low but ended up just randomly burning him down in seconds after repeated attempts.
I had this on my 31 in 1 cartridge back in the day and remember playing it periodically. I don't think I ever got further than stage 2. Back then this game was kinda fun for very short periods at a time but too simple, repetitive and difficult to play for long. I can appreciate it more now as an adult but it is still a very meh experience.
5.5/10
Forty games from forty years. Going to try bit of a project, and finish game from every year from 1985 to 2025. Why? It's kinda round nice number.
Game for 1985. NES port of arcade game. You kick, punch and jump around with rather clunky controls. Slim pickings for 1985.
Always cool when an early game is "modern" enough to include music/visual interludes when you afk on the title screen, feels very modern to do that heh. And thank goodness this allowed for a Kempston Joystick option, everything I read online said the keyboard controls are hell-ish. Even with a joystick tho, as you can probly imagine, this extremely early fighting game was super clunky, slow-to-respond, and ultimately not fun. I could see it being more fun 2-player with someone else completely struggling ha. It is super cool and advanced that they have the Replay function, so you can rewatch the knockout haha
Gotta love it for starting the beat em up genre, it even felt like the upcoming NES era ones I am so fond of (I used to play so much Double Dragon, the NES port). But it just simply isn't that fun as it is. Important, innovative, and getting me ready for a genre I love--but in practice, clunky and goofy and repetitive real fast. (And yes, be ready for a bunch of status updates and reviews in a row, dating all the way back from 4/12. Darn Runescape has been distracting me for that long ha)
I've been playing this a little bit each week and it's incredibly hard. It's a bit of pattern matching but comes along with randomness, to make the toughest kind of game. Today I couldnt even get out of the first stage. Grrr... I think it's time to retire this one.
Completed on NES emulator, no savestates
FINALLY beat this game (2015)