Atari Jaguar: Kasumi Ninja – Review
Kasumi Ninja or otherwise ‘misty’ ninja, a fighting game that was produced for the Atari Jaguar in 1994. The title says it all: Stealthy gameplay, epic battles, martial arts and a black suit to match all of it. Sadly you’ll have to do with a Scotsman lifting his kilt to shoot fireballs out of his… you know…
Story:
The Atari Jaguar had the capabilities to bring you a decently animated intro to this fairly unknown fighting game. Sadly, it didn’t. The story is brought to you in a horrible way, namely: a wall of text which seems to have no end. To be honest after reading it twice I still forget what the game is all about. Good and evil, poorly dressed ninjas and fighting, that’s all you need to know. (Honestly all you want to know after you read the first half of the text.)
Graphics:
Kasumi Ninja looks like Mortal Kombat, they just inserted other characters and ”more” blood. Understandable seeing Mortal Kombat was pretty much the king of gorish fighting games. About having more blood, Kasumi Ninja was the first game to insert setting on how much blood you want in a game. (Probably hoping to win a few fans of gorish games?) Basically Kasumi Ninja tried to jump the Mortal Kombat bandwagon but failed for the most part.
Sound:
Overall Kasumi Ninja provides us with a decent soundtrack. Sadly the sfx and voices are another story. The narrator sounds like he’s on the toilet squeezing a big one 24/7. Believe me the first time you hear ”LOUND 1” instead of ”round 1” it’s funny, the next 200 times, it’s not. The developers tried to do something original, but made it originally annoying.
Gameplay:
You will already encounter your first annoyance when picking your character. The character select screen is simply awful. You have to ‘walk’ to your character to pick it, a concept that in itself is fairly ok. The only problem is you have to turn around to see all your characters and the movement is so laggy and choppy you are constantly wishing the game went for a normal select screen.
Kasumi Ninja feels like a Mortal Kombat date that has passed its expiration date. The moves are nearly impossible to perform and your character feels as if you’re trying to perform ballet with a hippo. Don’t worry, if you accidently happen to perform a special move, your enemies will still kick your ass on ‘easy’. It’s nearly impossible to have the courage to play through the story mode once, because your enemies pull off a lot of special moves whilst you are able to pull of one or two. (which you’ll probably miss.) You only have 3 buttons which you can use: Block, punch and kick, each coming with a poor response time.
After giving up on the story mode there was the multiplayer mode. Amazingly this mode proves to be very entertaining. It’s rare to say, a game is that crappy it’s amusing to play with friends. Both of you will be equally handicapped when it comes to performing special moves and/or timing.
The characters in Kasumi Ninja happen to be original when it comes to appearance and some even when it comes to their special moves. It’s quite rare to see a Scotsman shooting fireballs from under his kilt or fluorescent ninjas trying to kill you. At least that’s an A for effort.
Conclusion:
Kasumi Ninja hoped to become popular by relying on familiar gameplay and style that a lot of gamers got to know from the Mortal Kombat series. Sadly it’s not because a game looks like a series you like or love, that the actual product is good too. Kasumi Ninja proves only to be slightly fun when playing it with friends.
Atari Jaguar: Kasumi Ninja - Review,
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