I've often told myself that I won't quit reviewing games until my entire library of 100+ games is completely reviewed. If this is true that means I'm going to have to one day review all of the worst games in my collection, and doing this will be something I do not enjoy, in fact I dread having to review some of these crap-fests, but I figure I may as well get this one over-with now while I have nothing to do, leaving me with only good games to review in the future.
I think I can safely say that The Legend of Kage is the worst game I own. No other games come to mind right now that are quite as bad as this one, I have a clean track record of never buying shitty games. However, I can still recall that horrific night I recieved this "game" -- if that's what you want to call it..... <flashback>I was all set to go to the mall, and was excited because it was the first time I had gotten to go shop for NES games in a long time. So with 20 dollars in my pocket I was all set to go and was waiting on my sisters. Then my dog, who I care about very much, started having a seizure. I didn't know what to do, as this wasn't a normal occurence. I stayed by my dogs side until it was through, and then I felt I had to take care of him, being the kind person I am. So I didn't go to the mall, when I really, really wanted to, and gave my money to my sisters with precise orders on what kind of games I wanted them to buy, anything megaman, anything Dragon Warrior, anything that resembles a fun action game I would enjoy. They come home with the 3 biggest insults to my NES library, Legend of Kage, Demonsword (sequel to Legend of Kage -- yippee) and 8-Eyes. I learned a valuable lesson though, and wont ever send people out to shop for me again. </flashback> Oh yes, I almost forgot, I'm doing a review. Here's the breakdown (assuming there's anything here in this game significant enough to break down)
Graphics
Legend of Kage's graphics are outdone by most Atari 2600 games I've played, and have to be the worst I've ever seen on the NES. The only kind of cinema in the game is at the beginning, where the main character and his girlfriend (who both look almost alike, due to the fact that the main character wears what looks like a dress) are standing by what look like trees as a ninja swoops down and takes Kage's girlfriend away. How exhilerating! After that it throws you right into the "game". The main characer and all of the enemies each seem to have only 2 colors, 3 at the most in them, and no sign of a face can be seen on any characters. The backgrounds are one-colored and the surroundings aren't much better, this hurts gameplay because sometimes you can't tell when you are connecting with a tree or not, and there's no way of telling where it's safe to land. I'll give it 2 points for even having graphics, 1 point for having what resembles a cinema scene
Graphics Rating: 3
Gameplay
What I can sort of make out about The Legend of Kage is that it's attempting to be like Ninja Gaiden. Your main character (I'm assuming his name is Kage but I don't know, nor care for that matter) can jump extremely high by pressing up, don't think this is cool because it's not. It's far too difficult to control your jumps, and pressing up to jump doesn't belong in a sidescrolling game. Kage has 2 weapons, a samurai-like sword and ninja throwing stars. The sword is almost useless when you have an unlimited number of throwing stars at your disposal. The real laughable part is that, when in the air, throwing a ninja throwing star results in the star going off into a random direction! I guess Kage skipped class pretty often at the NES school of ninjitsu, heh heh. Hmmm, what can I give it in the gameplay department... I'll give it ten for trying to be cool, and 1 for making it so easy to kill Kage's sorry ass.
Gameplay Rating: 11
Sound
Ugh ::cringes:: , don't remind me please. The sound of The Legend of Kage is perhaps this is the worst part, if that's at all possible. The sound is actually pretty average -- by Tiger handheld games standards. The bleeps and blips of this game will make your time playing it all the more short, and you'll be tripping over yourself trying to get to the power button to turn your NES off after just a few minutes of hearing this music. Do yourself a favor, don't play this game. If you do, make sure you are prepared, have the volume all the way down before you play. Having it on mute is a little too dangerous if you ask me because there's always the slight chance you'll sit on the remote and grace the unmute button, forcing you to endure a few seconds of the "music".
Sound Rating: -1
Storyline
What I get out of the short sequence at the beginning of the game is that Kage's girlfriend gets napped, and he must go fight a bunch of enemies to find her. How epic! The cover of the game shows a samurai-ish Kage with his girlfriend, who has strange undialated pupils. That's all I can really tell you, as I've never looked into what the storyline is for this so-called game. If you find yourself enjoying this game, you probably couldn't comprehend storylines in videogames anyway, so don't worry about it.
Storyline Rating: 5
Replay Value
The last kid I tricked into playing The Legend of Kage ran away screaming bloody murder and hasn't been seen since
Replay Value: 0
Overall: 5
I'll give it 2 points for having graphics at all, 1 point for attempting a storyline, 1 point for actually trying a cinema scene, and 1 point for being on the best system ever made. The only way I could find The Legend of Kage useful is that after playing this, you'll appreciate your other games a whole lot more. This game could be a good antidote for anyone who whines and complains about camera angle problems in Castlevania 64, or how Final Fantasy 8 is too different from the other games in the series. Hey, I think I'm on to something here! Perhaps the evil that is The Legend of Kage is a huge plot by Nintendo, to make all of thier other games look better by comparison. Sure makes sense to me.
(3/2/00)
This just in: Just after reviewing The Legend of Kage I've found out some news about it, it actually was a Commodore 64 game before it was ported to the NES, explaining the shit graphics. This would also contradict my statement about the game trying to imitate Ninja Gaiden. I've even found a screenshot of the game, some guy had the game listed in a list of games he had beaten. I don't know what's sadder, the fact that this C64 pic looks lightyears better than the NES version or the fact that some guy actually beat The Legend of Kage.
