Hello friends. Dan Ryan here, you… there. Thank you so much for checking in and if you like what you see please comment and share. A long time ago on a website far, far away, Geekade if you’re curious, I wrote a column during the summer months called Kung-Fu Fridays. The goal with those posts was to highlight a martial arts, read Kung-Fu/Ninja/Karate/etc., movie, video game, or sometimes both at the same time. My love for martial arts media is endless. It has been a major part of my pop-culture identity since I was a little kid and now, as an adult, it has only grown. So it is in that spirit that I bring this new version to you, the reader. Submitted for your approval this is Kung-Fu Fridays: Kung Fu Kid. As with all reviews here on the blog I will be using the wholly original, not copied at all from any defunct gaming magazine, patent pending SAG Pod Ranking System, which is explained below…

Developed and published by SEGA in 1987, Kung Fu Kid is a sequel to the SG-1000 game Dragon Wang. No worries if you've never played Dragon Wang though since the story in Kung Fu Kid is minimal and honestly, has no impact on the game other than to get us from point A to point B. Our main hero, Wang, is a kung-fu master who must journey across various levels to defeat the evil Mandada and his band of demons. Along the way you will kick, jump kick, low kick (there’s a lot of kicking), and throw a ridiculously strong talisman at a non-stop parade of enemies ranging from standard thug looking bruisers to Jiangshi, Chinese Hopping Vampires. Each of the first six stages ends with a boss fight with stage seven consisting of a boss rush mode of sorts before taking on, according to the back of the box, the undead Mandada, the most dreaded creature to ever live. I loved this game as a kid. It was one of the first games I got for my Master System and I played the hell out of it. Looking back on it now it’s easy to see why. The game is really short, think like twenty minutes or so once you’ve got it down, but really fun. The kicking feels great, the talisman is fun to use, and the jumping is crazy. Seriously, Wang can not only jump basically the height of the entire screen but can also wall jump. And if you can manage it, there is a bit of an exploit where there can only be three enemies on screen at a time so you can make them follow you the entire length of the stage and just boss rush. If you like games like Black Belt or Kung Fu, Kung Fu Kid is right up your alley. It’s an affordable game with CIB copies going for around $25.00 according to Price Charting.  And hey, once you grab a copy for yourself you’re going to want to show it off to friends, family, lovers, etc. Well, you’re in luck since we've got just the thing right here at the Stone Age Gamer.

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Graphics: 4 Kung Fu Kid is a really good looking Master System game. It’s especially impressive considering that it was an early release in the console's life cycle. The main character Wang is nice and big and animates well. Enemies are varied both in look and style and stand out from each other. Backgrounds range from bland open skies to detailed forests to beautifully tiled dragon mosaics. The colors also really pop and give the entire package a nice, Saturday morning cartoon vibe.

Sound: 3.5 The music in Kung Fu Kid is really solid. Nothing gets a chance to get repetitive since the game is so damn short which works in its favor. The sound effects are minimal but sound good. Kicking has a nice thump to it when enemies are defeated and the talisman has a decent sort of explosion when taking out enemies.

Control: 4.5 The controls are really solid. Wang does what you want him to most of the time with the only fluctuation coming in the absurdly high jumps you can pull off. Once you dial that in though, measuring your button press, the game feels good to play. Everything is responsive and the extra things you can do, wall jumping and using talismans, are easy to pull off consistently.

Fun Factor: 4 This is a hard one to gauge since the game is so short. For me, I really like the length. (insert size queen joke here) Kung Fu Kid is really easy to pick up and play AND beat which gives it an inherent replayability in my opinion. The challenge becomes more about how quickly you can get through the game, or with how little damage, as opposed to can you actually get through it. For a retro game, that’s not the most common thing.

But I want to know what you think. Join the Stone Age Gamer discord, or you can find me on Bluesky to let me know your thoughts. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes: I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again.” See you soon.