The Legend of Kage
A ninja's quest to rescue a princess across five stages.
The Legend of Kage is a 1985 hack and slash platform game developed and published by Taito for arcades. The player controls the ninja Kage, who must navigate five stages to rescue the princess Kirihime. The arcade release exceeded sales expectations and was considered a success for Taito.
Quick Facts
- Publisher
- Taito
- C64, CPC, ZX Spectrum
- Imagine Software
- Composer
- Hisayoshi Ogura
- Platforms
- Arcade
- NES
- MSX
- Commodore 64
- Amstrad CPC
- X1
- ZX Spectrum
- Genre
- Hack and slash, platform
- Modes
- Single-player
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The player controls the Iga ninja Kage, who must rescue Princess Kiri from the warlord Yoshi and the samurai Yuki. Armed with a kodachi shortsword and unlimited shuriken, Kage fights through a forest, a secret passageway, a fortress wall, and a castle. The princess is rescued twice (three times in the FC/NES version), and each rescue changes the season from summer to fall to winter and back to summer. In home versions, a crystal ball changes Kage's clothes color, granting powers such as bigger shuriken or faster speed. Being hit in green or orange clothes reverts Kage to red clothes instead of dying. After five levels, cycles repeat until all lives are lost.
Development and release
The Legend of Kage was released in Japan in 1985, in Europe later that year, and in the United States in January 1986. Composer Hisayoshi Ogura gave the music a distinct Japanese feeling to suit the setting, adapting it to the sound hardware. Early versions used a sound board based on the MSM5232 chip, but an FM version was also produced due to Ogura's experimentation with FM sound; the final version used an FM sound board. The game was nearly shelved, but after positive reception at a game show, Taito decided on a full release.
Reception
In November 1985, Japan's Game Machine magazine ranked The Legend of Kage as its top-selling table arcade cabinet. Taito's Ogura noted roughly 6,000 kits were sold, a solid result for the company. Commodore User magazine gave the Commodore 64 version a mixed 5 out of 10, panning its graphics, sound, controls, and cost, while pointing out heavy borrowing from Konami's Shao-lin's Road. The NES and Famicom release was poorly received.
Legacy
The Famicom/NES version was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on December 19, 2006, and in the United States on February 19, 2007, and later on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console in Japan in 2014. The arcade version appeared in the Japan-only compilation Taito Memories Gekan for PlayStation 2 in 2005, and in the Western compilation Taito Legends 2 for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Windows in select PAL regions in 2006, with the PlayStation 2 version available in North America in 2007. A 3D remake alongside the original arcade version is included in Taito Legends Power Up for PlayStation Portable in 2006. The Revised Legend of Kage, included in Taito Nostalgia 1, adds two new playable characters: Ayame, who throws bombs and has unlimited throwing knives, and Ganin, a dog that breathes fire and performs a spin attack. A new final boss, a giant green cobra, appears at the end of each second run through the levels. The arcade version was ported as part of the Arcade Archives series on December 1, 2015. A follow-up game was developed by Lancarse for Nintendo DS and published by Taito in 2008, with a North American localization by Square Enix later that year.
More in Taito Games of the 1980s
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