Kung-Fu Master (NTSC)
Kung-Fu Master, known in Japan as Spartan X (スパルタンX, Suparutan X), is a 1984 beat 'em up arcade game developed and published in Japan by Irem. It was later published in North America by Data East. The Japanese version was based on the Jackie Chan movie Wheels on Meals, known as Spartan X in Japan, and credited "Paragon Films Ltd., Towa Promotion", who produced the film upon which it was based. The game is considered by many to be the first beat 'em up video game, and contains elements of Bruce Lee's Game of Death.
In this early beat 'em up, the player controls the main character, Thomas, by punching with the A button and kicking with the B button. Either move can be done from a standing, crouching or jumping position. Punches are worth twice as much as kicks and do twice as much damage, but their range is shorter.
The first floor of the temple contains Grippers and Knife Throwers. Subsequent levels introduce Tom Toms, poisonous moths, fire-breathing dragons, snakes, and confetti balls.
Each of the five floors ends with a different boss who must be defeated before Thomas can climb the stairs to the next floor. Thomas must complete each floor within a fixed time. The timer starts at 2000. If it falls below 330, an acoustic warning sounds. If a boss defeats Thomas, the boss laughs. Although there are five bosses, the game only uses two different synthesized laughs. (The NES port uses a third, high-pitched synthesized laugh for the Black Magician.)
Once the player has completed all five floors, the game restarts with a more demanding version of the Devil's Temple, although the essential details remain unchanged. A visual indication of the current house is displayed on the screen. For each series of five completed floors, a dragon symbol appears in the upper-right corner of the screen. After three dragons have been added, the dragon symbols blink.
In this early beat 'em up, the player controls the main character, Thomas, by punching with the A button and kicking with the B button. Either move can be done from a standing, crouching or jumping position. Punches are worth twice as much as kicks and do twice as much damage, but their range is shorter.
The first floor of the temple contains Grippers and Knife Throwers. Subsequent levels introduce Tom Toms, poisonous moths, fire-breathing dragons, snakes, and confetti balls.
Each of the five floors ends with a different boss who must be defeated before Thomas can climb the stairs to the next floor. Thomas must complete each floor within a fixed time. The timer starts at 2000. If it falls below 330, an acoustic warning sounds. If a boss defeats Thomas, the boss laughs. Although there are five bosses, the game only uses two different synthesized laughs. (The NES port uses a third, high-pitched synthesized laugh for the Black Magician.)
Once the player has completed all five floors, the game restarts with a more demanding version of the Devil's Temple, although the essential details remain unchanged. A visual indication of the current house is displayed on the screen. For each series of five completed floors, a dragon symbol appears in the upper-right corner of the screen. After three dragons have been added, the dragon symbols blink.
Kung-Fu Master (NTSC)
Technical
CPU
- maincpu M6502 (@ 1 Mhz)
- pokey POKEY (@ 1 Mhz)
Chipset
- TIA (@ 0 Mhz)
- POKEY (@ 1 Mhz)
Display
- Orientation Yoko
- Resolution 255 x 225
- Frequency 60 Hz
Controlers
- Number of players 2
- Number of buttons 2
- Kind of controler joy (8 ways)
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Kung-Fu Master (NTSC) Screenshots
Clones of Kung-Fu Master (NTSC)
Plot
The player takes the role of Keiji Thomas, a man in a Keikogi and slippers. Thomas's girlfriend, Sylvia, has been kidnapped by "Mr. X", and Thomas must fight through five side-scrolling floors full of enemies to rescue her.
Brutally summarized as "rescue girlfriend – hit people", the US and UK version opens with the phrase "Thomas and Sylvia were attacked by several unknown guys....".
Brutally summarized as "rescue girlfriend – hit people", the US and UK version opens with the phrase "Thomas and Sylvia were attacked by several unknown guys....".
Development
The game was produced for Irem by Takashi Nishiyama, who also created Irem's 1982 arcade-hit Moon Patrol, and later designed the original 1987 Street Fighter at Capcom before leaving to run SNK's videogame development division, creating the Neo Geo arcade system board and its games like Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, Art of Fighting, The King of Fighters '94, and Samurai Shodown there, as well as several of their successors.
Ports and related releases
Kung-Fu Master was ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, BeOS x86, Commodore 64, DOS, Java, Linux, NES/Famicom, MSX (Irem/ASCII version as Seiken Achō), PlayChoice-10 (arcade, nearly the same as the NES version), Sega SG-1000, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Windows. It was also made for the 8-bit Gameking console, under the name of Nagual. Some of the 8-bit conversions offered highly degraded performance, sound and image resolution. The NES version was ported and published by Nintendo simply under the title "Kung Fu" in North America and the PAL region. It is also one of two NES/Famicom games that had Jackie Chan as its lead character, the other being Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu (which was also released for the TurboGrafx-16). The original arcade version was later included along with the arcade versions of 10-Yard Fight and Zippy Race in IAC/Irem Arcade Classics for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, released in Japan only in 1996 by Irem and I'Max. The arcade version was also released to cell phones.
The Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum versions of the game was included on the 1986 compilation They Sold a Million 3, along with Fighter Pilot, Ghostbusters, and Rambo.
Irem's 1988 Vigilante was intended as a followup. The gameplay is nearly the same, but with a completely different plot added to it that takes place in the urban areas of New York City, where a nameless titular character must save his girlfriend, Madonna ("Maria" in the Sega Master System version) who was captured by the Skinheads ("Rogues" in the Sega Master System version). One unique feature is the ability to pick up and use the battering weapon: the nunchuks, until either the player gets hurt, finishes a stage or begin battling the final boss.
In 1990, the arcade game received a completely different Game Boy sequel titled as "Kung-Fu Master" ("Spartan X" in Japan), which has similar gameplay to the arcade game, but with a completely different plot, setting, set of enemies and stages. Some of Keiji Thomas's new abilities are back-flip kicks and small bombs dropped by enemies. The flat levels were modified into stages with different platforms and objects in an urban city style similar to Vigilante's. The English version was modified from the Japanese version, by changing the look of Thomas and add some small enemies in the final stage before fighting the final boss.
In 1991 a Japan-exclusive sequel to the game was released for the Famicom, titled Spartan X 2. Like Vigilante and the Game Boy version of Kung-Fu Master, Spartan X 2's plot is also quite different and takes place in an urban area, with no mention of Sylvia, but rather "Johnny Spartan", a member of an unnamed crime-fighting unit who wears a red, short-sleeved jacket, an charges with foiling a group of drug smugglers. One unique feature is the ability to crouch for a second before either sending an uppercut or grab and throw enemies from behind.
Director Agnès Varda featured the game prominently in a live action film of the same name (Kung-Fu Master!), dealing with an affair between a 40 year-old woman and a fourteen year-old boy obsessed with the game. When he finally beats it after 6 months, he asks a bartender to give the older woman a call to let her know. The bartender is initially a bit dismissive but still picks up the phone. However, she cannot get the message because she is not home, and the bartender reaches her daughter who is too young to be a messenger. The film was retitled Le Petit Amour for U.S. release so it would not be perceived as a martial arts film.
The Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum versions of the game was included on the 1986 compilation They Sold a Million 3, along with Fighter Pilot, Ghostbusters, and Rambo.
Video game sequels
Irem's 1988 Vigilante was intended as a followup. The gameplay is nearly the same, but with a completely different plot added to it that takes place in the urban areas of New York City, where a nameless titular character must save his girlfriend, Madonna ("Maria" in the Sega Master System version) who was captured by the Skinheads ("Rogues" in the Sega Master System version). One unique feature is the ability to pick up and use the battering weapon: the nunchuks, until either the player gets hurt, finishes a stage or begin battling the final boss.
In 1990, the arcade game received a completely different Game Boy sequel titled as "Kung-Fu Master" ("Spartan X" in Japan), which has similar gameplay to the arcade game, but with a completely different plot, setting, set of enemies and stages. Some of Keiji Thomas's new abilities are back-flip kicks and small bombs dropped by enemies. The flat levels were modified into stages with different platforms and objects in an urban city style similar to Vigilante's. The English version was modified from the Japanese version, by changing the look of Thomas and add some small enemies in the final stage before fighting the final boss.
In 1991 a Japan-exclusive sequel to the game was released for the Famicom, titled Spartan X 2. Like Vigilante and the Game Boy version of Kung-Fu Master, Spartan X 2's plot is also quite different and takes place in an urban area, with no mention of Sylvia, but rather "Johnny Spartan", a member of an unnamed crime-fighting unit who wears a red, short-sleeved jacket, an charges with foiling a group of drug smugglers. One unique feature is the ability to crouch for a second before either sending an uppercut or grab and throw enemies from behind.
Related Film
Director Agnès Varda featured the game prominently in a live action film of the same name (Kung-Fu Master!), dealing with an affair between a 40 year-old woman and a fourteen year-old boy obsessed with the game. When he finally beats it after 6 months, he asks a bartender to give the older woman a call to let her know. The bartender is initially a bit dismissive but still picks up the phone. However, she cannot get the message because she is not home, and the bartender reaches her daughter who is too young to be a messenger. The film was retitled Le Petit Amour for U.S. release so it would not be perceived as a martial arts film.
| Preceded by Ghosts'n Goblins | UK number-one Spectrum game October 1986 | Succeeded by ACE |
