The Legend of Kage

As the beautiful princess stood walking in her native woods... terror struck! An evil ninja flew down and captured the innocent princess, imprisoning her at the top of a great palace, but do not worry princess, for Kage is on his way!

And that's the idea of The Legend of Kage. You are Kage, ninja warrior on a quest to save the princess, several times I might add, and restore peace to the galaxy etc. etc.


Now I agree the story isn't original, or fantastic, or even that cool, but at least it's got ninjas. More importantly it's just funny, and I like the idea of the story being so completely random that its not even a part of the game. Sure you have to rescue the princess, sure that's the ''goal'' but not once was I ever concerned with that. I wanted to kill ninjas! And that's why the story is fun, and that’s why it gets a ten.

The graphics in the first level are excellent, but the quality low in the second and third, but good again in the fourth. Everything is rendered in bright, solid colors; it's pixelated and small, allowing the player to see a lot of the action.

Unfortuneatly, the sound is horrible, and I really mean that. Its the same song throughout the entire game, and its a really annoying one at that. To make things worse, every time the princess is captured, a little song plays that makes you want to have a seizure. I'm so serious, it's about the most annoying thing on the planet.

Hundreds of ninjas are flying at you from everywhere throwing shuriken, and then other times they aren't. A lot of the game is luck, and luckily I have a lot of that. I beat the game 4 times through all the seasons one night to do research for the Walkthrough/FAQ, nearly went crazy in the process... No continues, 3 lives, not very many extra lives...tough. The real fun is all in the jumping: Kage jumps so high it's incredible; he bounces off of trees nicely, and all in all it's a really fluid Crouching-Tiger-Hidden-Dragon-Feel.

There is plenty of fun waiting inside the forests of Legend of Kage. Finding a copy shouldn't be hard: I see one in every video game store. Don't expect too much out of it and take it for what it's worth, you'll easily see that it deserves the ten. This is one of my favorite games of all time; wonderfully simple and addictive.