Downtown Special - Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki Dayo Zenin Shuugou! Review by: sonicx15 - 9.5/10
An amazing and underrated game!Summary:
This is an amazing game in the Kunio kun franchise. Some people call this ''River City Ransom 2'' because it has the same gameplay and almost identical character design. The objective is relative simple: track down your enemy on a huge map, and beat all the henchmen for the boss to show up. After you beat the boss, other enemies will appear somewhere on the map, and sometimes the boss will give you an useful item,learn you a technique or even offers to join your team! The controls are easy to learn,but hard to master: you walk around with the arrow keys,sprint by tapping one of the arrow keys twice, punch with A and kick with B. If you want to jump,you have to press A and B both at the same time (just as in River City Ransom,or Double Dragon). Fight with your fists or master one of the many items you can pick up,the choise is yours!
A big improvement over River City Ransom is that if you play alone,you have a computer controlled ally. That's right! You never have to fight alone. As you fight and make progress through the game,you and your ally can learn various techniques to help you on your way. Unfortunately,you have to figure out how to do those moves by yourself,as this game doesn't give any instructions. You'll also come across malls from time to time, where you can buy various items to power yourself up, learn new techniques,or even gamble with your money.
Graphics (9)
The graphics are very good for an NES game. You clearly see difference between every character! Also all opponents and bosses look different. This is an impressive thing when you realize 8 bit computers only had limited pixels. The different environments are very well drawn too. There are lots of different backgrounds and theme-related screens where you can battle on, like deserts, plains, islands and even an underground cave!
Sounds (9)
There are many pieces of music in this game, which all fit very well in the environments they are used in. They all give a japanish feel to the game. I personally can't help but to feel like a ninja when I run across plains while listening to this music. The fighting noises and noise you hear when a coin is dropped may sound familiar, as it are the same sounds River City Ransom used! I personally am glad they keep the same noises, instead of trying to make them sound ''more modern'' which usually end up in some terrible noises.
Addictiveness (10)
This game is very fun to play, and very addictive too! There is a story that makes you keep playing,and when you decide that ''this is the last boss you're going to beat'' you might learn a new technique or the boss may join your team,which makes it nearly impossible to stop playing. This game has very much content and lots of secret shops and hidden area's to find, that you can find new things every session!
Story (9)
The story is very simple: Your teacher (sensei) Mr. Bunzo has been infected by a poison,and Kunio's crush has been kidnapped. Your job is to cure Mr. Bunzo, free the girl and defeat the evil ''gangs''. Dialogues the bosses say are usually things like '' We finally meet,lets fight!'' so they actually don't add much to the story. Nevertheless, this game is incredibly long,so there are lots of dialogues,some of them actually relate to the game's ''story'' so I give it a 9 for the story.
Depth (10)
This game is so incredibly deep, it really amazed me! Although this is an NES (actually Famicom) game, it has the Depth of a GBA game. The AI's are very smart,and you can fight in a lot of ways. Fight with your fists,with items or even fallen enemies, cooperate with your Ally on one target or both take another enemy out,the choise is yours! The map is incredibly huge and there are many enemies to fight, so it will take a while before you beat the game, thrust me ;)
Difficulty (5)
This game gives you the opportunity to choose between 5 levels of difficulty: Easy, ..., Normal, ... and Hard. Easy is indeed very easy and on Hard,the enemies are very fast and can beat you very fast! I think the gap between ... (between normal and hard) and hard is too big! But since it is an NES game,we should be very glad we can choose from 5 levels of difficulty, it is very impressive!
Pro's
-Fight in a lot of ways
-smart ally and opponents
-lots of content
Cons
-it takes way too long for a fallen enemy to get up again
-game can be slow sometimes
-The Famicom can't handle it to run the game at full speed,so you will experience lag (unless you're the only one on the screen)
Graphics
9 Sound
9 Addictive
10 Depth
10 Story
9 Difficulty
5
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