The Legend of Kage (1985)

Preliminary: Lol I love the way the feet move super fast as you run, I love the over-the-top jumps into the trees, I love the lightning strikes and the seasonal themes. It's a bit chaotic and silly, but hey, unlimited Shuriken and hack n slash - I think this may break my recent slump with gaming in general!

Look: 8/10 The beginning woods area is beautiful, especially the trees in the background, I wonder what it'll look like in the other seasons... or if it'll be worth playing that long regardless. I loved the look of this area (turns out it was the last unique stage? I dunno, the stages went crazy fast for being an arcade game)

Sound: 7/10 Nothing special, but not bad either. Pretty funky/driving/hypey bassline I suppose.

Play: 7/10 What is with 1986 arcade games regressing in terms of precise controls and accurate collision masks/sprite movements? I felt like my character sprite jumped around a few times in battle ha. Luckily, with infinite Shuriken, the battles (for just clearing the 5 unique stages before a re-cycle) are doable despite this clunkiness. I just can't say it enough that arcade games shouldn't really have that factor... Even the jumps into the trees--as epic as they were--felt like a microcomputer's jump. But hey, the Feel and the Look make it worth pushing through anyway. Oh! A positive about the gameplay and mechanics itself, though, is that you can whack away enemy projectiles! Always a plus to me. And yessss, when I went up to get a Scroll from a tree, and some epic music played and the screen flashed a bunch (epilepsy warning for sure) and ninja after ninja died.

But gosh yeah, even just trying to go up those stairs in, I guess you'd call it stage 3 or 4?, was soooo clunky and awkward. And the way you can't turn a direction without having quite a bit of momentum in that direction... Cmon now, this is an arcade game...

Feel: 8/10 Well, wait shoot apparently that was the final unique stage lol. Cuz here's the princess I'm rescuing. I mean I know they expect you to rescue the princess twice apparently, but even with that, that was crazy short for an arcade game. Oh! And then instantly the princess is snatched again. Lol! Hm, is the super awkward jump/movement controls and mediocre combat worth pushing through the 5 stages a second time? Especially with the promise that there is, supposedly, a true rescue at the end? (So help me if she just gets snatched again lol)

Attachment: 7/10 A bit confused, I guess the final woods season is the stage 5? Cuz there's that uber-enemy boss type thing, which seems impossible to beat so you just jump/float along and easily dodge her and then now you're in the woods in a new season. At least the seasons are pretty and worth seeing, tho maybe not for all the seasons... I can just google for that ha. I do love me some fall though (and today, indeed, irl, is the first day of fall)

Edit: On my 2nd day of playing, deciding to give it a little bit more of a try tho was doubting seeing the other seasons would be worth it, I am glad I did a little research -- turns out this came out in 1985. I will update the entry. But that does give at least a little bit more context to the mechanics and faults, tho still quite disappointing for an arcade game regardless.

Welp the fact I played through the 5 unique stages a whole 2nd time says a lot! Sure, the woods area had some different colors, but really it was the same game again. It was more fun on this 2nd playthrough, I was used to the quirks (which are still unforgivable even if it's an 85 arcade game :-p ) and I was flying along. Cute game despite its faults and worth a try! When the princess was swiftly snatched again (I thought you only had save her twice in the arcade game according to Wikipedia? but it didn't seem to have any sort of even pseudo-ending), I didn't feel like going a third round, but the 2nd round really sold me on it!

Completion: saved the princess twice (through autumn version) Playtime: ~30 mins

Bruh! I'm getting better at these old games. The entire playthrough took me about 20 minutes, and it was So So much fun.

I realized while playing that I did play this before as a knock-off or with a hack changing the design, so maybe that's why the games was a breath for me.

I can only complain about the controls might feel random at times, same with the enemies, but minor complaints as such won't affect the game.