 Snake parody clip I did not have an NES when I was a kid, but I went to school with a bunch of other kids who did — one friend of particular named Tim also had a subscription to NintendoPower! He generously bought each issue to school with him, and I'd always flip through and get green with N.V. at all the games I never got to play. In the early years of this channel, I tried to remedy that by going over stuff that I missed completely, like Metal Storm, Powerblade, Return of the Ninja, G.I. Joe, Lo G-Man, mostly side-scrolling platformers like that just because I remember them looking like really cool games in Nintendo Power. Well, here we have Kabuki Quantum Fighter, another side-scrolling action platformer and it's developed by Human Entertainment, who later went on to make some oddball games like SOS and Clock Tower for the Super Nintendo, so this is sure to be a weird one. There's a bit of confusion about the title, however. The box says Kabuki Quantum Fighter, the title screen says Kabuki Quantum Fighter, but Nintendo Power just calls it Quantum Fighter, and this commercial, well… Is that 90s enough for ya? It turns out in Japan, this game is known as Jigoku Gokurakumaru and it was made as a tie-in to the Japanese film, Zip Bang, which evidently has a Kabuki dancer as its main protagonist. Most references to that movie were removed when the game was released elsewhere, but I guess there was no way to remove any of the Kabuki stuff since it's the main character sprite, so they just rolled with it and didn't make any mention of it in the commercial or in Nintendo Power. As you can see, this is a pretty standard action platformer, run to the right, kill stuff, dodge stuff, but your main attack is your hair, that's right, you helicopter headbang enemies to death. What is he? George Corpse Grinder Fisher? It's range is somewhat short, but it's still effective. I think it's better than, say, the punching attack in Shatterhand. The frustrating thing here, though, is that you can't use it when crouching, you're reduced to this weak jab you have to do, so that kinda sucks. You do pick up alternate weapons at the end of each level, and you can switch to them using the select button, and it's the usual range of stuff like missiles and bombs. I'd rather use the headbanging attack, though. You get three lives and three continues to get through six levels. When you die, you start at the last checkpoint, and when you use a continue, you start at the beginning of the level, no passwords here. Each level takes place inside a computer, and that brings me to the story. In the year 2056, a computer virus has infected the Earth's nuclear defense system, and Colonel Scott O'Connor is chosen to upload his brain and consciousness into the network so he can fight it somehow. Kinda like the hacking in Shadowrun, I guess? It's an experimental procedure that's never been done before, so I guess one of the side effects is, uh, dressing as a kabuki dancer? So there's no way this dude is 25 years old, he's like half that age, come on. Anyway, like all action platformers, you can give your character all sorts of cool abilities and whatever else, but the game is only gonna be as good as the level design, and in Kabuki Quantum Fighter, it's just okay. I guess the word to use is conventional, it's very much what you'd expect from a game like this. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just very derivative. Friday Night Arcade pointed out the similarities in the design between this game and Ninja Gaiden 2, and after seeing that, it's pretty hard to ignore. Also similar to Ninja Gaiden 2 is The Difficulty. This game features some of the most annoying difficulty you'll ever see. There's speed imbalances, there's blind jumps, there's the stuff in the background that tricks you. Really, I can't jump on this, but this stuff hurts me? That's ridiculous. There's a lot of stuff like that throughout this game, and it's not a deal-breaker, but it is frustrating. But I'm willing to bet that if you're into games like this, then you're prepared to deal with all that stuff anyway. And I mean, you've got a life bar here, so at least there's no one-hit-death nonsense. I also have to mention the boss fights, which are just strange. They're pretty much just one-on-one fights on a confined space, but the enemy AI here is just all over the place. The boss bounces around in every direction with no real pattern, which is frustrating when you're trying to use a close-range melee attack. So yeah, in a lot of ways, Kabuki Quantum Fighter represents your traditional NES action platformer experience. It does just enough to elevate it above describing it as generic, but it's not quite good enough to earn a place in that upper echelon of games like Castlevania or Bionic Commando or Mega Man. Still, there's definitely an audience for games like this, so if you liked stuff like Shatterhand, Return of the Ninja, and that kind of stuff, and you're not looking for anything staggeringly original, then you'll enjoy Kabuki Quantum Fighter. And I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.