Legend of Kage

Sinclair User

Overall 2/5

John Gilbert 2/5

Label: Imagine Price: £7.95 Joystick: various Memory: 48K/128K Reviewer: John Gilbert Mushy, lovey-dovey stuff this. Kage, the hero of our legend, takes Kiri, his latest girl, for a walk in the beautiful oriental forest. The trees are tall, the mould is green and the Dragon King comes along in his carriage to kidnap her. The King disappears and you're left on the screen of this Taito coin-op conversion to take care of his ten Ninjas. These warriors swing in from both sides of the screen, brandishing Stiletto knives and Shurikens - silver throwing stars which do damage to flesh. Pretty standard stuff so far. The bad news is it gets worse. Even a luke-warm arcade player could beat the Ninjas and Dragon King on all four games screens. The techniques you use are almost entirely obvious when you first look at each screen. In the first, for instance, wait in the middle of the screen until two Ninjas swing down at you. As they swing closer together move to one side of the screen or another, under one of the Ninjas so that they end up on your left or right. Then run, turn suddenly when they're a safe distance from you and fire some Shurikens. The Ninjas will all fall fairly easily. When you've polished off the Ninjas the Dragon King descends from the trees and starts to breathe flames at you. Don't touch him, just follow him around, hit him ten times with your Shurikens and he'll die easily enough. Screen three is levels and ladders The screen's a horrible yellow colour, emblazoned with black patterns which makes it almost impossible to see any attacking Ninjas. If you reach the fourth level - not difficult by any standards - you'll have a good chance of rescuing Kiri from the talons of the Dragon King. She's hidden on the top floor of the King's gaudy palace and, yet again, you've got to defeat her guards and release her after you've killed the Dragon King. Not the most difficult Taito coin op converted by imagine into not the most difficult game on the planet...

Crash

Presentation 81%

Graphics 63%

Playability 57%

Addictive Qualities 51%

Value For Money 46%

Overall 50%

Ben Stone

Mike Dunn

Paul Sumner

Producer: Imagine Retail Price: £7.95 Author: Gary Knight Parting is such sweet sorrow! More like a nightmare in the case of poor Kage - the bravest, most dashing Ninja of them all. There he was anticipating a leisurely, amorous stroll in the woods with his loved one, the beautiful Princess Kih, when suddenly she's gone. The evil, fire-spouting Dragon King, racked with jealousy, has whisked her away to have his evil way. Now it's up to the broken-hearted Kage to save his beloved from the nasty monster. Legend of Kage is set in four locations, the first of which is the forest where the kidnapping took place. Here among the lofty branches, Kage encounters the Dragon King's henchmen - the black Ninjas. These are disposed of either by flailing stick or shuriken star. Kage has an infinite supply of the stars which can be thrown in three directions: diagonally up, straight ahead, or diagonally down. The Black Ninjas fight back with their own stars and being hit by one results in the loss of one of Kage's five lives, and a return to a the start of the screen. In the forest, Kage can climb the trunks of trees and also leap from tree to tree in his bid to defeat the nasty Ninjas. When ten of the black Ninjas are dead, the Dragon King himself puts in an appearance, spouting streams of fire wherever he goes. Deft fighting at this stage results in the evil one's hasty retreat to his castle. Kage's subsequent pursuit brings him to the second location - the Dragon King's Palace. Kage finds himself at the wall of this seemingly impregnable fortress, surrounded by another group of hostile Ninjas. Once again ten Ninjas must be killed before Kage can attempt to scale the walls and continue the rescue mission. Beware the Ninjas hidden in the moat! The third section involves scaling that wall. This is painted with directional arrows, but is guarded all the way by more of the lord's minions. Successfully negotiating this stage leads Kage to the final section. As Legend of Kage reaches its climax, our hero fights his way through the enemy's lair to locate the kidnapped princess, whom the crafty fire-breather has stashed away in the uppermost turret of the castle. Once he is past the guards, the Evil One himself puts in an appearance and Kage has to step back very smartly to avoid cremation. To finish - the fearless Ninja must dispose of the Dragon Lord, then release the pouting princess and live happily ever after. COMMENTS Control keys: W up, S down, N left, M right, Q fire, SPACE pause Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2 Use of colour: good, although there's a lot of colour clash Graphics: jerky animation, small sprites Sound: good title tune, but bland effects Skill levels: one Screens: four

Backs to the wall as Kage confronts another Ninja.

If you go out in the woods today... Kage gets more than he bargained for in his afternoon stroll.

Your Sinclair

Graphics 6/10

Playability 7/10

Value For Money 6/10

Addictiveness 6/10

Overall 7/10

Marcus Berkmann 7/10

Imagine £7.95 Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann "Long ago in an ancient and magical oriental land..." the blurb begins, and few hardened gamesters will need to know any more. Yes, its Ninja time again, with all the usual righting of wrongs, rescuing fair maidens and smashing people round the head with long wooden poles. Good clean fun, of course, but where's the novelty? After grinding away at this for an hour, you find yourself wondering whether there really is room for yet another game set in the mystic east. What has Legend Of Kage got that the other 6,211 haven't? As Kage it's your task to rescue the luscious Princess Kiri (daughter of King Appletise?) from the evil Dragon King. To do this you leap around a forest with astonishing agility seeing off a load of mostly inept warriors in black robes. Once past them you face the Dragon King himself, a remarkable character who clearly holds the world high jump record as well as being extremely evil. Further screens take you into his castle but little changes. The most you can really say of Legend of Kage is that, mercifully, no-one gets kicked in the goolies. Instead Kage wanders about with what looks like a pole but I'm assured is a very large sword. Even so, in every other respect Imagine's latest arcade conversion is just too similar to the standard ninja-puts-the-boot-in game, especially in feel. As such its likely to be of interest only to fans of the original and the most dedicated of orientalists.

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