Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu

Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu

NES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Now Production Publisher Hudson Soft Published 1990-12-?? Platforms NES, TurboGrafx-16 Genres Beat 'em up, Licensed, Platformer Themes Action, Cartoon, Martial arts Distribution Commercial

Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu is a platform beat 'em up developed by Now Production and published by Hudson Soft for the NES in December 1990 and the TurboGrafx-16 on 1991-01-18. Although the NES port was released first, it seems pretty clear that the game was first made on the TG16 and then ported to the NES.

In the game, you play Jackie Chan who is trying to rescue his sister (or girlfriend in the TG16 game) who has been kidnapped by a Sorcerer.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. NES port.
Finished	2018-01-02.

I first heard about this game because it was a prize on a children's game show, I think Masters of the Maze, but I never saw it played until years later using an emulator. While the game looked good and seemed interesting, I first dismissed it as just another generic NES platformer. Years later, while looking for video game music to record, I played the game's NSF file and was impressed by the music. Wanting to know where in the game a particular song was played, I took to playing the game through and got to the third level. This was more than enough to impress upon me how enjoyable the game is, so I decided to play the game for real. I beat it on my second attempt.

Review

6	6	7	6	6

Best Version: TurboGrafx-16

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game has really attractive graphics. The characters are well animated and feature some of the best cartoon drawings on the NES. Many of the sprites are also hilarious.
• Masakatsu Maekawa's music is quite impressive. It uses a coherent timbre throughout the game and several songs have a wonderful traditional Asian sound which fits the theme. The NES audio makes especially good use of the hardware.
• The controls are very responsive and fluid.
• Each stage has a unique set of backgrounds, enemies, music, and a boss.
• I like how there are multiple secret stages, each which requires a new set of skills to master.
• Unlike many NES titles, the game isn't that difficult, which is a nice change of pace. Pitfalls, rather than killing you outright, punish you by setting you back or injuring you. However, the TG16 game is considerably harder.
• The game includes a lot of interesting Chinese and Japanese mythology.

Bad

• There isn't much to explore in the game. Once you discover the hidden bells, you've found everything the game has to offer, and it's just a matter of honing your skills.
• The NES port eliminates large sections of the levels, and, with only five total, the game is too short. I would have loved to see another two or three levels or at least the rest of the TG16 levels.
• The NES port also eliminates a lot of the enemies and eliminates complexity for the rest, especially the bosses.
• The TG16 port is ttoo hard.
• Josephine is described in the manual as being a kung fu master with abilities comparable to Jackie Chan, which is progressive, but, in the game, she shows no skills whatsoever, so her title is just window dressing.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The American NES release has a nice colored-pencil drawing of a young Jackie Chan with kung fu silhouettes in the background. It certainly gets the point of the game across, but it doesn't quite address the silliness of the game. I don't care much for the gray backdrop or the inappropriate lettering, but it's still my favorite box.

• 

  The Japanese TG16 box uses a nice movie poster style painting of Jackie Chan. Kind of dull, and doesn't portray the silliness of the game, but it does feature fantastic lettering accented with an Asian dragon.

• 

  The Japanese NES release features a cartoon drawing of most of the game's characters. Jackie Chan is a bit too deformed for my taste, but it certainly conveys the lack of seriousness of the game. More wonderful lettering.

• 

  The art on the American TG16 box is pretty lackluster, and while the shape of the lettering is nice, the typeface doesn't fit at all.

• 

  The European NES box keeps only the good characters from the Japanese box, and features pretty impressive lettering.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - Famicom - Japan

• 

  Manual - NES - USA.

• 

  Manual - PC Engine - Japan.

• 

  Manual - TurboGrafx-16 - USA.

Maps

• 

  NES - Stage 1.

• 

  NES - Stage 2.

• 

  NES - Stage 3.

• 

  NES - Stage 4.

• 

  NES - Stage 5-1.

• 

  NES - Stage 5-2.

Videos

Longplay, NES.

Longplay, TurboGrafx-16.

Play Online

Famicom, NES (Europe), NES (USA), PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	Josephine, the only female in the game, is merely a damsel in distress.
Bechdel test?	Fail	The game has no dialogue.
Strong person of color character?	Pass	Jackie Chan is Hongkonger.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu
Japanese	ジャッキー チェン	Jakki Chen	Jackie Chan

Links