Review: Kung Fu Fight (3DS)

If you read my review on Quiet, Please for the 3DS, you may recall a moment where I brought up the minigames in Vacation Vexation. One of them was Karate Battle, which is actually a mini version of Kung Fu Fight. Fast forward to now – the developer of those games just released Kung Fu Fight on the 3DS.

Story

Save the old man’s granddaughter from the evil warlord. That’s pretty much it. At least the game doesn’t take itself seriously; the exposition is cheeky, and the one-liners the protagonist may spout during gameplay can be chuckle-worthy.

Graphics

If you’ve read my reviews on Quiet, Please and Candy, Pleasethen you know what to expect. The visuals are reminiscent of Atari/’80s computers, and for some reason this 3DS port runs at 30 frames per second anyway. What makes this aspect even weirder is that Vacation Vexation‘s Karate Battle minigame actually does run in 60 frames. Keep in mind Karate Battle and Kung Fu Fight are fundamentally the same game.

Audio

There’s only one background music track during gameplay, and it gets repetitive rather quickly. The sound effects are the typical 8-Bit-sounding “pffs” and “blips”. Nothing really stands out here.

Gameplay

At its core, Kung Fu Fight is an endless runner. There are two modes: One of them is a story mode, while the other is for personal high score contests. Replayability is actually encouraged this time around; there are difficulty selections for both modes, and there is an in-game achievement system for the achievement hunters out there (You know who you are). The game also keeps track of the percentage of how many of these things have been achieved. I just wish the base game was more enjoyable.

As the protagonist runs, the player has to make him jump, slide, or punch enemies and obstacles out of the way. There are enemies that utilize their own patterns for the protagonist to dodge accordingly. The problem is that I don’t think there’s enough to keep the action from getting repetitive. Once the player beats up some boxes and baddies he or she has seen it all by that point, with maybe an exception or two. Not even the warlord adds variety from a mechanical standpoint; he just tosses bombs for the protagonist to jump over and shurikens to slide under.

Verdict

Overall, Kung Fu Fight is alright as a distraction. It is a functional pick-up-and-play runner, but it doesn’t really do much to impress. I mean, I don’t expect a $1.99 title to be “impressive”, but I do think the money could go towards a more fulfilling game if I were you.

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