Kasumi Ninja - Atari Jaguar, 1994

 

Jason "Mr Midnyte" Pinon

Hi!  Welcome to the inaugural post of Forgotten Legends, where we explore some deep cuts from the world of Fighting Games.​

We've got a good one.

​After Street Fighter II was released in 1991 and became a smash hit, the fighting game genre blew up and many different clones and successors followed.  The same was true for Mortal Kombat in 1992.  While SF clones were often sprite based and relatively blood free, MK opened the door with digitized graphics and ultra violence.  Kasumi Ninja certain falls in that second category.  It was an exclusive to the Jaguar, and the first fighting game on that platform.

​I'm going to have to assume that some of our readers don't remember, nay have never even heard of the Jaguar.  The less you know about it, the better.

​This game takes several pages out of the MK playbook.  The characters are digitized still of *maybe* real people, and animated.  There are ninjas that look the same, but are palate swaps.  Characters have finishing moves to obliterate their defeated opponent off the face of the Earth.  Plenty of blood and gore to go 'round.  This game is at least unique in that you could actually adjust the level of gore, from a (relatively) kid friendly 1 to ULTRA VIOLENT 4 which is where you can use the legally distinct *NOT FATALITY.  The life meter at the top is even a sword that fills up with more blood as you take damage AND THEN CONTINUES TO RAIN MORE BLOOD ONTO THE PLAY AREA. 

The characters are a pretty standard lot for this era, with ninjas, barbarians, and scantily clad woman.  Stand-outs include Habaki and Senzo, the twin ninjas (Twinjas?); Pakawa the Native American stereotype; Danja who is an Asisstant DA by day, street fighter by night; and Angus MacGreggor who has the the unfortunately memorable move where he lifts up his kilt and shoots a fireball at you.  Seriously.  Is it some sort of dick joke?  Something about 'firecrotch'?  Odd choice for sure.

​

Overall, this game didn't fair well on a console that nobody had.  Most critics panned it due to poor controls and sound quality, and called it out for the blatant Mortal Kombat rip-off that it is. Many likened it to similar titles on the SNES (which sucks for a 64-bit system that Atari was running). The voice of the Announcer is clear, but also terrible.  It sold around 24,000 units, and there were plans to make a sequel on the Jaguar CD before it officially died.  I think this one is locked in the Vault, never to be seen again.

I also wanted to add that on the box it advertises a FREE HEADBAND with purchase of game.  Fucking rad.

Here is a link to a video of the Fatalities this game has.  It's pretty amazing.

​https://youtu.be/UM82PgC1VVU


Midnyte Score - 1 out of 5.

​


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