Kung Fu Er San

I'll levae a positive review for now, but the game has some serious gameplay issues that really hinders the fun it could be. This is an obvious homage to Yie-ar Kung-Fu 2 (YAKF2). Not the first one, but its sequel that was released for the MSX and got some horrendous ports for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. The game even uses the font from the original Brazilian MSX model (The Gradiente Expert) to make its homage more obvious (I'd prefer if it used YAKF2 font, but oh well). So I'll compare it to the game it is trying to homage, while also mentioning overall features of the game. Like YAKF 2 , each level is compromised of a few screens of enemies, and then a 1 on 1 fight against an enemy. Unlike YAKF2, instead of fighting the same enemy, you have some platform sections, arrows flying at you, guys trying to beat you up, background hazards and stuff like that, which adds some variety to the game. Also lke YAKF2, you'll reach the boss with your health depleted because of those initial screens, which will feel the fight is unfair, but that's how the game was and I see they tried to do the same here. The game is very generous with the extra lives too. Alas, fighting the enemies feels unfair as hell, as they have way more resources than you, and you will have less health than then because you were fighting goons and jumping arrows before. It was like this in YAKF2 too. If you die on this fight, you don't have to start the level again, you now can try to fight the enemy with your full health. The game uses 2 buttons (unlike YAKF2 that only used 1), one for punches and one for kicks. You jump pressing up which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't by the fact you can change the height of your attacks by pressing up or down at the same time (or a few frames after) you press one of the attack buttons. This WILL make you jump by accident sometimes. Someone suggested a jump button would be better, and the dev added the possibility to jump with R3 or L3 which not only is weird as hell (Why not one of the trigger buttons? We didn't need them as extra attack buttons that do the same as the face buttons), but also doesn't eliminate the main problem because there's no way to turn off UP as jump, so even if you want to use L3 to jump, you'll still jump accidentally while trying a high attack. And you NEED the high attacks because, like in Kung-Fu Master (Another game this is at least giving a nod to), on the initial screens of each level you may need to kick or punch enemies (arrows, etc) at the right height. Which is DIFFICULTY AS HELL with this control scheme. So you may just try to defend by pressing the opposite direction (like in Street Fighter) but then... your character gets confused if he's supposed to defend or just change direction and move back. So defending on the initial screens is a mess. Soundwise I really disliked the game. The music didn't do anything to me, and many of the sound effects are your typical stuff made with BFXR (or similar) which plagues so many indie games, with some grating sound effects (The menu sfx is awful, and I could completely live without the tape loading sfx on the intro. It's ok for nostalgia sake the first time, but it's REALLY annoying the 2nd time you load the game) For the positive points, the gameplay *is* good if you can get around all the problems I mentioned above. There's some timed attacks and jumps you need to learn which is pretty cool. The game has lots of secrets where you need to attack certain areas of the background to get extra power ups (Again, pretty much like YAKF2). Figuring out the patterns for the enemies is fun (though that guy with the whip and the lion... Jesus Christ is that hard). The graphics are solid for this kind of game. With some small adjustments, the game could be awesome. For right now... I'd say is "above average". It's not bad, it will give you memories of Yie-Ar Kung-Fu 2 if you've ever played it (including its frustrating trais).. and for the price range (it seems it NEVER gets a discount, even on sale periods, which is a bummer) you can have a solid, if flawed, game. Oh, and it's a shame the ESSCCCFFFF cheat doesn't work. I was really expecting you had added that :D