Released for the PC Engine CD-Rom in 1995, Kabuki Ittou Ryoudan was the second fighting game based on Kabuki, one of the main characters from the "Far East of Eden" series of RPGs released by Hudson Soft in the early 1990's. One of the last releases for the console, it made use of the "Arcade Card" expansion. The game is rarely discussed outside of Japan, but is actually a decent fighter. Let's take a look at a possible lost classic.
In the game, you take control of a fairly typical ancient Japanese fighter. Besides Kabuki himself, you can choose between various warriors, geisha-type female fighters, strongmen, and warrior types. Character design is fairly nice, and the sprites are fairly big and detailed, making use of the added memory from the Arcade Card. Backgrounds are also quite vivid, with eye-catching colours. All in all, the game looks quite nice and stretches the aging (at the time) PC Engine quite well.
Controls are easy to get a hang of. Fireball motions will generally produce a special move. Each character has a variety of these moves to master, just like any other 1990's fighter. If you only have a two-button PC Engine controller, the controls for this game can present some problematic issues. Like Street Fighter 2 for the PCE, you must press a button on the PCE pad to switch between kicks and punches. While this can be annoying, it forces you to think ahead in terms of move placement.
The game is quite easy to beat, and should take about 20-30 minutes to get through. I did not die once during my first play through. Real fun will come from the vs. mode,provided that you have a multi-tap for your PCE. While the game may be a fairly typical 1990's fighter, fans of the series and anime in general will enjoy characters from the series, catchy music, and some decent play-ability.
Score: 8/10
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