Kickmaster was perhaps Taito’s greatest Nintendo effort.

A game in the style of such Taxan/Naxat (they were both subsidiaries of Kaga Electronics) games as Burai Fighter, Low G Man, 8 Eyes, and Gi Joe.

The game is a side scrolling Nintendo title like many others, but this one stands out above them with outstanding graphics, flawlessly precise controls, quite good sound effects and an entirely classic soundtrack.

It’s mostly action but has some mysteries and hidden things to find here and there. It has an experience
system that levels up your lifebar, gives you new moves, and further allows you to use magic to help you out.

Yes, you get to use magic and to a great degree. Once you find them you’ll have an array of healing and status
spells, magic fireballs and screen clearing death dealers to waste your hoarded magic points on. It has a very
unique item dropping feature that some may find annoying, but in the context of this game it adds a frenetic extra
layer of strategy and gives the player a reason to always be on their toes if they want to be in the best shape
possible. Three progressive levels of difficulty and a password system (a Taxan/Naxat staple) help give the game decent replayability for the obsessive types.

Now, it’s not all sunshine and unicorns of course. There are a number of confusing technical glitches (though none are related to performance issues), the difficulty curve is sporadic and sometimes powering up can give you a slight disadvantage attack-wise, but these are minor quibbles.

The game would have really had a chance to clean up at retail, but it was released very late into the life cycle
of the NES, and nearly everyone had moved on to Sega’s or Nintendo’s latest 16 bit monster by the time it was done.

This game is a real kick!

Question of the day: what the is wrong with Youtube’s description field format?

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1. thatrandombloak Says:
   November 29th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

   I always thought …
   I always thought the story was a bit of a castlevania rip off, but the game itself is awesome and unique.

2. YoYosmack275 Says:
   November 29th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

   Nice I would have …
   Nice I would have never thing you would have found this game. I’m gonna do a playthrough of it in the near future.

3. Firebrand101 Says:
   November 29th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

   Oh crap I remember …
   Oh crap I remember this one!

   And man now that I look back, it really does have a Taxan feel to it.