What if a bunch of Nintendo's world-famous franchise characters stopped adventuring and just got in a big fight? No doubt that would be an awesome game. You can just imagine the dollar (or appropriate currency) signs in the eyes of the person who came up with a surefire idea like that.
That was the idea behind Kart Fighter, created ... some time after Super Mario Kart was released, by an unknown Hong Kong developer. It's a 2D fighting game starring Mario and friends, in familiar settings based on the Mario games.
Nintendo totally ripped these guys off. Have they no respect for intellectual property?
That was the idea behind Kart Fighter, created ... some time after Super Mario Kart was released, by an unknown Hong Kong developer. It's a 2D fighting game starring Mario and friends, in familiar settings based on the Mario games.
Nintendo totally ripped these guys off. Have they no respect for intellectual property?
Kart Fighter is an unlicensed game for the Famicom, based on Super Mario Kart in looks and Street Fighter II in gameplay. The whole cast of the original Kart game is here, out of their tiny novelty cars (and also out of proportion with each other), under their Japanese names, or silly variations thereof: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Koopa (Bowser), Kinopio (Toad), Nokonoko (a Koopa Troopa), and the very cutely-named Yossy. The odd transliteration of Yoshi's name did more to make him (her?) a likable character than anything Nintendo ever did. Peach's skirt has been shortened significantly, either because the developers couldn't figure out how to animate high-kicking in a long skirt or in a misguided attempt to make the flickery, nondescript sprite look sexier and thus push a few more loose cartridges out of the shops in Hong Kong.
As your standard Famicom Street Fighter clone, Kart Fighter involves exceptionally flickery sprites (there's a reason NES sprites were usually small!) and fireball moves for everybody. The good old down-forward-punch sends a crescent-shaped fireball across the screen (or some variant, like the awesome mushroom Kinopio throws); other moves include a spinning pirouette thing, Nokonoko's great shell-spin, and Yossy's awkward aerial forward ... wiggle of some kind. They're not terribly easy to pull off. Sometimes your bashing of the controller may coincide with what happens on the screen, but don't expect to be pulling off frame-perfect combos with your custom arcade stick. You can't expect some hard-working pirates to make a game and test it as well!
It's not like Kart Fighter is the only crappy 2D fighter on the NES. In fact, every one-on-one fighting game on the NES sucks. Probably the high point of the genre is the extra mode in Double Dragon, and that's only because it's so weird to see everyone else's sprite blown up, but Abobo's left the same size. The NES isn't the system for fighting games -- even ones with budgets.
In fact, in the limited scope of 2D fighting games on the NES, it's almost possible to view Kart Fighter as decent. If they had drawn some original characters instead of drawing Nintendo characters, which wouldn't have taken any more work, this would be a pretty good unlicensed game instead of a pirate game. They still could have named somebody Yossy.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-24-2008 @ 3:17PM
John Rios said...
My mind is BLOWN. I'm a bigtime fanboy and I've never heard of this till now! MUST PLAY!
Reply
4-24-2008 @ 3:21PM
Aaron said...
Agreed. I've been devoted to Mario & Co. since I was a young kid and I've never heard of this.
So there really *was* a Super Smash Bros for the NES!
4-30-2008 @ 11:17PM
THE WICKER MAN (BWF) (GT: Dalek Prime) said...
Toad fends off the stink crotch attack ultimate smash.
4-24-2008 @ 3:23PM
TheWarlock said...
This is by far the coolest thing I've ever heard of this week! I wonder what secret characters there would be. King dedede?
*drools* I MUST HAVE THIS.
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4-24-2008 @ 3:37PM
aeazel said...
You can play Toad! I was hoping for him in SSBB. :/
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4-24-2008 @ 3:51PM
SoshiKitai said...
This just feels so strange. o_o
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4-24-2008 @ 3:57PM
mazza_man said...
Koopa leaps high into the air just as Toad passionatly yells 'HADOUKEN!'
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4-24-2008 @ 4:07PM
deaftly said...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hjGpg5tcL8
Video of the insanity.
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4-24-2008 @ 4:37PM
CJLopez said...
Jajajajaja, i remember my days back when emulation was everything to me, I found this game o a nes roms page, downloaded and show it to a friend, who recently had bought Super Smash Brothers, and we were like "Nintendo Ripped of the idea from this!!!! Whatever let's keep playing SSB"
Man, i knew the name kart fighters tingled on my mind, just couldn't remember why, xD
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4-24-2008 @ 4:55PM
hvnlysoldr said...
Peach's score should raise with what she's doing to Toad.
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4-24-2008 @ 4:56PM
Alex said...
the Luigi sprite makes me lulz
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4-24-2008 @ 5:01PM
Alex said...
If it IS true that SSB was released after this, then Nintendo pirates piracy LOL. It's so sad that the NES is so underpowered that it can't handle fighting games properly.
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4-24-2008 @ 5:21PM
milan said...
I played this on a nes emulator ages ago, but i never really knew the story behind it.
I'd say that it is not very fun, although it's interesting and makes for a good blog post!
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4-24-2008 @ 5:31PM
FunkMasterRitter said...
You know, I've actually played this and it is indeed crap
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4-24-2008 @ 8:01PM
Dan K. said...
hide ur children
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4-25-2008 @ 3:42PM
Jeff said...
"The odd transliteration of Yoshi's name did more to make him (her?) a likable character than anything Nintendo ever did."
wtf?
Yoshi is awesome.
Reply
5-01-2008 @ 8:58AM
wiiomatic said...
it looks like they ripped off kinko's for the name more than nintendo...sheesh.
Reply