Virtually Overlooked: Kart Fighter
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?
Gallery: VO: Year One
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)
John Rios @ Apr 24th 2008 3:17PM
My mind is BLOWN. I'm a bigtime fanboy and I've never heard of this till now! MUST PLAY!
Aaron @ Apr 24th 2008 3:21PM
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!
THE WICKER MAN (BWF) (GT: Dalek Prime) @ Apr 30th 2008 11:17PM
Toad fends off the stink crotch attack ultimate smash.
TheWarlock @ Apr 24th 2008 3:23PM
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.
aeazel @ Apr 24th 2008 3:37PM
You can play Toad! I was hoping for him in SSBB. :/
SoshiKitai @ Apr 24th 2008 3:51PM
This just feels so strange. o_o
mazza_man @ Apr 24th 2008 3:57PM
Koopa leaps high into the air just as Toad passionatly yells 'HADOUKEN!'
deaftly @ Apr 24th 2008 4:07PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hjGpg5tcL8
Video of the insanity.
CJLopez @ Apr 24th 2008 4:37PM
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
hvnlysoldr @ Apr 24th 2008 4:55PM
Peach's score should raise with what she's doing to Toad.
Alex @ Apr 24th 2008 4:56PM
the Luigi sprite makes me lulz
Alex @ Apr 24th 2008 5:01PM
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.
milan @ Apr 24th 2008 5:21PM
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!
FunkMasterRitter @ Apr 24th 2008 5:31PM
You know, I've actually played this and it is indeed crap
Dan K. @ Apr 24th 2008 8:01PM
hide ur children
Jeff @ Apr 25th 2008 3:42PM
"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.
wiiomatic @ May 1st 2008 8:58AM
it looks like they ripped off kinko's for the name more than nintendo...sheesh.