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Kart Fighter for the NES (before Super Smash Bros became a thing)

Started by Dream of Omnimaga, May 05, 2016, 06:35:04 AM

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Dream of Omnimaga

Several years ago, when Meelee came out, somebody told me that Super Smash Bros 64 was not the first game in the series and that the first one was actually made in 1993 for the NES in Japan and only featured 2 fighters at a time. I didn't know the title so I couldn't find it on the Internet, so eventually, I started thinking it was not true.

However, I have finally found the game that that person talked to me about: It's Kart Fighter for the NES. The reason why I had an hard time finding info about it is because this game is actually an unlicensed pirate Famicom game based on Street Fighter, but with the characters and music from Super Mario Kart and it was made by Hummer Team.




I wonder if it's any decent? Some people says it is actually not bad, but that the sprites flicker a lot. It's kinda odd that a pirate Mario fighting game predates Super Smash Bros series by so long, because normally such hack comes out afterwards. What would be funny is if Nintendo actually got inspired from that pirate game to make Super Smash Bros. :P
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

gameblabla

I gave Kart Fighter a try and i can definitively say that it's one of the better fighting game on the system.
HOWEVER...
Make sure to set the difficulty level to 1 in the options before you play the game so you won't have to fight against a cheap IA.
This game also seems to have lag issues on Mednafen, play it with FCEUX instead.

Anyway, it's very playable and the controls are easy to pull off.
That's not the case for special moves though, you'll probably need an arcade stick for that...
The music isn't too bad and is sometimes even pretty good, like that music in the forest level.
The sprite flickering isn't actually too bad, at 60 FPS it's not noticeable.
Overall, a decent game and probably the best bootleg game.

Before that game, i played World Heroes 2 for NES. (No, not World Heroes for NEOGEO...)
That game is ok for two player mode i guess but the cheap IA for some caracters (looking at you Haggar...) completely destroys the game...

Oh, and Kart Fighter seems to have a 2 player mode too but you have to press Right on Controller 2, apparently.
  • Calculators owned: None (used to own an Nspire and TI-89)

Dream of Omnimaga

I am surprised there are difficulty settings, since many reviews talks about the lack of any menu or options, but I guess it's good that there are difficulty settings. I am surprised that it's very playable. Most pirate games have many controls and collision detection issues, although they aren't that bad in some of them.

I wonder if it would play on a real NES? IIRC Donkey Kong Country NES doesn't because it uses extra mappers not present on the NES, but I could be wrong.
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

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