This may be somewhat of a controversial opinion, but I love Kung Fu Chaos.

I think it's one of the most ridiculous, original, goofy ass games to ever be released. Perhaps it's my innate inclination to appreciate meta content that allowed me to really admire it, or perhaps it was because it dabbled in the concept of filmmaking and I played it at a time when my interest in the subject was overtaking my interest in video games, but whatever the reason was, I love this game from the first moment I played it. It's energetic, it's over the top, it's cartoonish, it's full of - arguably - fairly insensitive and poorly dated humor, but really who can fault when you look at when it was released. Not everything ages well. But even in light of that, I still love it.

The odd thing is, I loved it while despising a lot of what it was based upon: I've never been one for samurai or kung fu movies, and I have never been an enormous fan of battle royale type games, such as Super Smash Bros. But I think it's just the sheer fact that it was self aware and such a unique concept that the pretentious art dweeb within me couldn't help but adore it. It's a fast paced, high pressure button masher of a good time, with decent voiceover work and lots of cool characters to choose from, and I can remember the first time I ever played it was at a friends sleepover. He'd rented it and his mom had ordered a few pizzas for me and two of his other friends, and we played this game for hours into the night, stupidly unaware that that was as good as life would ever get.

Or at least would ever get for me.

You want to hear a story?

The friend who rented this game, his name was Colton. I met Colton in middle school, through physical education, a subject neither of us were particularly excelling at. While my reasons were due in part to asthma and poor athleticism in general, Colton was simply a heavier kid, who didn't enjoy running around for the sake of running around. That isn't to say he didn't like playing sports, or doing things outside, lord knows we spent a lot of time in his backyard doing ridiculous physical activities, but physical education wasn't the same. Colton easily became one of my best, and only, friends. As you know full well by now, it was rather hard for me to make friends as a kid, which should come as no surprise, seeing as I'm a total fucking loser. I was the awkward, socially unprepared, unfashionable weird girl who kept a dissected sheeps eye in her bedroom.

Needless to say, I was not the "cool kid".

I used video games as a way to make friends, because most of the other relatively uncool kids also liked video games, and Colton and I really liked the weird stuff. Stubbs The Zombie, Cel Damage, Kung Fu Chaos. We spent hours sleeping over at his house playing game after game after game, and having a blast. And yet, sometime in high school, he told me - rather directly to my face - that I was holding him back (he never would explain what he meant by this) and that I monopolized his time (again, no explanation was ever given). Turns out, actually, all the people I thought were my friends during school were only friends out of either pity or because nobody else would be friends with them. I was the last resort, the kid your parents make you spend time with. I don't talk to anyone I went to school with anymore, and that loss hurts tremendously. To go from thinking these were the people you could trust with anything, who really knew me, to being told by each and every last one of them that I was disposable...

...well, no wonder I hated battle royale games.

My entire life was a battle royale. Constantly fighting for a spot on the screen, to be recognized and accepted by my peers. These days I have no friends in my real day to day life, nor do I have much of a day to day life. I realized a long time ago that I didn't have what it took to keep fighting to be seen, and I certainly would never win. And despite how much I loved the game, I haven't played Kung Fu Chaos ever since that friendship ended. I still own a copy, box, manual and all, but I haven't touched it in years upon years. The memories it brings back hurt too much. How sad, to take something I loved so much, something that meant a lot to me, and have it turned into yet another thing I can no longer enjoy because the people I experienced it with turned out to be rotten, thus forever tainting something I adored.

I feel bad abandoning something that once brought me so much enjoyment, but I simply don't have the heart to go back to it. There's just too many painful memories there.

Everybody was kung fu fighting.

And in hindsight it was goddamned frightening.

My name is Maggie. I'm an artist/author. I make a lot of stuff. If you liked this review, you can support me over at Patreon or buy my books and other merch at Payhip.