Obscure Title Tuesday: The Legend of Kage!

The Legend of Kage for the NES! Or, as I like to call it: Ignore what time this Obscure Title Tuesday was posted!

Actually, I also like to call it Ninjas on Skates! Because you control a shuriken throwing Ninja with a sword on roller skates! It’s awesome. I’m guessing he’s on skates based on how he runs. It’s 8-bit, so it’s unclear.

The Tegena of Kage. The something of Kage. I'm guessing 'Legend'

This is a simple side-scroller that’s still fun today. The game play has you running and jumping (and this ninja can JUMP…think Golgo 13 except even higher) You can also climb trees and then jump out of the aforementioned trees. Some might find this frustrating but I thought it just added to the difficulty- when you jump, either straight up or diagonally, you can’t control yourself while in the air, and if you hit the ceiling (even if outside) you will fall straight down. Since you have a good 10-15 seconds of hangtime, if another ninja comes and throws a shuriken at you, you can’t get out of the way. Although, a well timed sword wipe with the A button will yield a satisfying shing and a block of said shuriken.

Gotta save the princess by humping this tree

The first 8 seconds of the game shows a woman in red, walking gingerly and innocently near a tree until a ninja swoops down and kidnaps her! You arrive seconds later, and the game play begins. It’s actually the simplest and most clear-cut rescue the princess story ever. It doesn’t even matter whether you know this chick; she’s your sister, your mother, whatever; she got kidnapped, you got shurikens, you got ROLLER SKATES… Go for it. Be a hero. Suit up.

There are power ups, of course: throwing bigger shurikens, the ability to get hit more then once without dying, and my personal favorite- the stop everything you are doing and pray (Literally, you pray) and everyone on the screen dies and if more people come to attack you, they die, and this lasts for 30 seconds while ominous music and lightening strikes can be heard in the background. G-d kills those bad ninjas for you. So I’m presuming this is the same G-d that made the flood from the bible, but even if it’s not, G-d himself kills your enemies for you in ‘The Legend of Kage’ for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This power is my favorite not for the difficult religious implications, but because bad guys materialize just off screen and attack you continuously no matter what during normal game play and there are an unlimited number of them. So the power up where G-d kills everyone that comes for 20 seconds, while bad-ass, is useless. It doesn’t decrease the number of bad guys that come at you after that. I think they just put it in to take a shot at Atheists.

DIE PAGANS!

All the levels are different…….kind of. The first is an open forest, second a narrow, low-ceilinged room with water underneath you can swim in, third is a jumping-to-the-top-of-the-level level, and finally, a dojo. If you are a pro, you can get through those levels in about 5 minutes.

After only 4 short levels, at the end of the Dojo level you find your, I’m guessing beloved, shackled to a pillar. Use your sword near her and BAM! You are reunited as she holds your hand and looks deeply into your 8 bit eyes as you both jump to the top of the dojo, make a massive jump off of said dojo, and --in a cruel cruel CRUEL act of IN YOUR FACE bad-guyism -- while you are running from all the other ninjas to safety, and you and your damsel in distress get back to the first forest level, the main bad guy ninja swoops down out of the air and steals the princess back RIGHT OUT OF YOUR NINJA ARMS!! (and flies away.)(I’m guessing she’s a princess) DAMNIT!!!!! Now you go and rescue her again, defeating the same 4 levels, except now they are a different color scheme and the bad guys are more difficult to kill.

D'oh!

Thankfully, this time if you save the now horrified, surely traumatized princess, you run off with her in your arms again, promising her a life of safety and ninjaless uneventful housework if that’s what she so chooses (or a job in any field of her choice, because girlpower and you support her) and you ask her to marry THE NINJA SWOOPS DOWN AND TAKES HER AGAIN!!!!! G-D WHYYYYY????

You should have tried praying that your damsel doesn’t get kidnapped successfully right in front of you instead.

The aforementioned housework, safety for a lifetime, and marriage dialogue does not actually happen in the game, but, I’d like to think that’s what they're discussing while they are running to nearly almost safety.

You know what’s even worse about all this? It took some great attention to detail for me to figure this out, but, the ninja that swoops down and steals your damsel after you rescue her 2 times is NOT the main bad guy. It’s literally one of the grunts that you’ve been killing non stop with only 1 hit the entire game. If you had thrown ONE shuriken at that guy he’d be dead and you’d be home making Love to your woman, but nooooo you get bested by, literally, a guy whom, of his similarly skilled compatriots you have killed thousands!

After you beat the same, yet changed color and harder difficulty 4 levels, you save the princess and…Third times the charm, because you run off and live happily ever NINJA STEAL!!!! PRINCESS GONE AGAAAAIN!!!! Only this time, you’re in a badass snow level, and you fight the ultimate bad guy ninja. This one is cool because you can’t kill the bad guy ninja until you find a butterfly flying around in the sky, and shoot it like, 5 times with a shuriken, and when the butterfly dies THEN you can kill the ninja bad guy. Maaan. Were we even the good guy? It’s so metaphorical. And….allegorical. That is so Japan.

See, because, you wouldn't think to kill a butterfly...

After you kill the bad guy, shockingly, you are reunited with the princess without her getting snatched out of your arms by a grunt! You have now beaten the game. The ending screen says that you are reunited with the princess now that you have saved her and “all the evils disappeared and the peace pervaded everywhere” G-d I want ‘the peace’ for America right now so badly. The final line of the ending title screen says: ‘This was a story of a ninja in Japan.” Whaaaaat???!!?!? Really?

Obviously! First of all, I know they were ninjas because even the 8-bit technology rendered them recognizable as ninjas, and I KNOW what a ninja looks like. Second, you had swords and shurikens that you threw. Ninjas. Third, after telling me this was a story about ninjas, they say that this was a story about ninjas FROM JAPAN. I KNOW Ninjas are from Japan! I don’t know where else ninjas come from other then FROM Japan!! After defeating the game, the game tells you: You saved the princess, are happily reunited, evil is gone, ‘the peace’ returns, and Ninjas are from Japan. Wow. Thank you, Nintendo. Thank you.

A fun, Ninja game that makes me angry at the bad guys for swooping happiness right out of my arms AND a happy ending? Forget the needless educational lesson on Ninja origins -- this game is awesome!

3.75/5 Roller Skating Ninjas! Bad Guys You Love To Hate! Save That Princess And Man Up!!