Kick Master

Kick Master[lower-alpha 1] is an action game developed by KID and published by Taito Corporation for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992. The game has some role-playing game elements, such as leveling up, and is also one of the first NES games to feature parallax scrolling.

Kick Master
Developer(s)KID
Publisher(s)Taito
Director(s)Hisayoshi Ichikawa
Motoyuki Inoue
Producer(s)Ken Lobb
Designer(s)Okumura
Programmer(s)Shinobu Yagawa
Artist(s)Kazuhiro Iizuka
Tsutomu Ozawa
Composer(s)Nobuyuki Shioda
Yusuke Takahama
Platform(s)Nintendo Entertainment System
Release
Genre(s)Action, platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay
Gameplay screenshot.

Kick Master resembles early games in the Castlevania series.[2][3][4][5] Enemies are fought using martial arts kicks and magic spells. Defeated enemies drop three items that will either help or hurt the player character Thonolan. When Thonolan gains a level, his maximum MP is increased and new moves are learned.

Plot

The castle of Lowrel is attacked and burned by the monsters and magic of the powerful witch Belzed (curiously, Western sources such as Nintendo Power described Belzed as a male).[6][7] In the attack, the King and the Queen are slain and their only child, Princess Silphee, is kidnapped. The king's guards were all killed, except for the knight Macren. He and his younger brother, Thonolan, an aspiring martial artist, take off on a long journey to free the princess. As the fight against Belzed's minions commences, Macren is mortally wounded by a skeleton. With his dying breath, he pleads his brother to use his "great kicking skills" to avenge him.

There are a total of eight destinations that Thanolan must bravely journey through before confronting and defeating Belzed:

  1. Witches' Forest - A small forest that exists just outside of the Castle Lowel. The skeletal forces that attacked the kingdom came from this area and are led by the witch Druilla serving under Belzed.
  2. Caverns of No Return
  3. Belzed's First Stronghold - A stronghold that was once used by Belzed but is now abandoned. Left in her stead as a guardian is the lightning-wielding gargoyle.
  4. Bottomless Crevasse - Beyond the stronghold is a series of crevasses along a mountainside. A fire-breathing chimerae seeking to end Thonolan's quest awaits him here.
  5. Aboard the Ship of Strife
  6. Across the Swamps
  7. Long Way From Home - What appears to be a dungeon of sorts within Belzed's castle. Not being satisfied with the all of the destruction that she has caused, Belzed even used magic to create evil doppelgangers of both Thanolan and his brother - which lurk about this dungeon.
  8. Sector 8: Belzed's Haunted Tower

If the player manages to complete the game, the evil Belzed is destroyed and Thonolan rescues the princess Silphee. He then torches down Belzed's Tower and disappears, never to be heard from again. The player is then given an opportunity to try to beat the game again on a higher difficulty level. There are a total of three difficulty levels in this game. Once the third difficulty level is complete, the credits will roll.

Reception

GamePro gave Kick Master a positive review upon the release.[7]

Notes
  1. Also known as KickMaster.

References
  1. "NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-06-11. Retrieved 2020-03-07.
  2. "Pak Watch - A Look Into The Future Of NES Game Paks! - Kick Master". Nintendo Power. No. 27. Nintendo of America. August 1991. p. 93.
  3. Kick Master instruction booklet (Nintendo Entertainment System, US)
  4. Ragan, Jess (December 10, 2011). "Giving Evil the Boot with Kickmaster - Taito put a fresh spin on Castlevania in this late NES release". 1UP.com. Retronauts. IGN. Archived from the original on 2016-07-19. Retrieved 2016-06-26.
  5. Kalata, Kurt (February 23, 2014). "KickMaster". Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on August 23, 2019. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  6. "Features: Kick Master - Vanquish Evil With Martial Arts and Magic". Nintendo Power. No. 28. Nintendo of America. September 1991. pp. 42–47.
  7. Music, Boss (February 1992). "Nintendo ProReview - Kick Master". GamePro. No. 31. IDG. p. 28.
  8. Weiss, Brett Alan (1998). "Kick Master - Review". AllGame. All Media Network. Archived from the original on 2014-11-16. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  9. Titus, Julian (May 17, 2013). "Kick Master (NES) review". HonestGamers. Archived from the original on September 21, 2015. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
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