Changes: Kart Fighter

Revision as of 11:04, 24 August 2019

Kart Fighter (瑪莉快打) is a fighting game made for the Famicom by Hummer Team. The game was possibly made in early 1994 because AV Bishoujo Senshi Girl Fighting reuses things from the game. It's well known due to having characters from Super Mario Kart beating each other up Street Fighter II style.

Overview

File:KFgameplay.PNG

Kart Fighter's Gameplay.

The game keeps the same style of gameplay as Street Fighter II. Each character has a set of moves although they are pretty similar overall. Everyone of them, except Nokonoko, is able to throw projectiles, has something like a charge attack; several have a stationary attack. Some of the background graphics have been taken from Mario & Wario and Little Nemo: The Dream Master. The music has also mostly 8-bit versions of the songs from Mario & Wario, although the music tracks for the title screen, Peach's stage and ending are from Super Mario Kart.

There are five difficulty levels in the game, like in most of the games based on this engine. The AI, however, seems to have a predefined pattern on the second round no matter which difficulty level is selected (ex: Ducking will cause them to shoot a projectile if they have one, jumping leads to either a charge move or an uppercut, etc.) The game also has a versus mode; in order to activate it, a button on the second player's gamepad has to be pressed.

Characters

File:KFSelect.PNG

Character Select Screen.

There are 8 playable characters in the game. Toad, Koopa Troopa, and Bowser are referred to by their Japanese names which are in parentheses.

Mario (Mari)
Luigi
Peach
Yoshi (Yossy)
Toad (Kinopio)
Donkey Kong Jr. (Donkey)
Koopa (Nokonoko)
Bowser (Koopa)

Move Commands

Mari (Mario)

D, DF, F, a: Fireball
B, F, a: Uppercut
B, B, b: Flying Kick

Luigi

D, DF, F, a: Fireball
?, ??, ?, ?: Uppercut
?, ??, ?, ?: Flying Kick

Peach

D, DF, F, a: Fireball
D, DB, B, b: Spin Kick
Hold Back, b: Hair Whip

Yossy (Yoshi)

D, DF, F, a: Fireball
D, DF, F, b: Tongue Attack
F, DF, D, b: Tail Dance

Kinopio (Toad)

D, DF, F, a: Mushroom Shot
B, B, a: Uppercut (Unlike Mario's and Luigi's, this one can only hit in the air)
F, FU, U, b: Flying Kick

Donkey (Donkey Kong Jr.)

D, DF, F, a: Banana Slide
D, DB, B, b: Uppercut (acts like Toad's)
B, DB, D, a: Spin Attack

Nokonoko (Koopa)

D, DB, B, a: Charge
B, F, b: Shell Spin

Koopa (Bowser)

D, DF, F, a: Fireball
B, DB, B, b: Charge
D, D, a: Tail Flop

Connections

Selecting Start or Option on the title screen plays an unused Chaos Emerald sound effect from Somari, but this time, part of it is deleted.
The option screen uses Super Mario World's (Famicom) mushroom as the border and the cape spin sound when choosing the difficulty. Not only does it use the mushroom but there's other graphics (like the lava in the castle stage) that are also used in Super Mario World.
The music in Donkey Kong Jr.'s stage is altered slightly from a music track in Jing Ke Xin Zhuan.
Some of the sound effects were reused in Harry's Legend.
The ending music, based off the one from Super Mario Kart, was reused in many of Hummer Team's fighting games. As this is the only Mario themed game to use this music, it's likely that this was the first game to use it.

Unused Tiles

File:KFUnusedTiles.PNG

Unused "Game Over" tiles.

Going through Kart Fighter's tiles, one can find an unused "Game Over". It was most likely planned to have a Game Over screen but it got dropped.

Reception

Due to the fact that this is an unlicensed game, it still has no feedback from the commercial gaming magazines. However, with the ROM being available to public, it got a plenty of user reviews on GameFAQs and YouTube, as well on several independent review sites.

Note that although this game has a true ending on higher difficulties and the fighters' names are not misspellings, as it was proved, many reviews tend to keep the same mistake over and over again.

GameFAQs has an average user rating of 7.0 by three reviews, two of which, however remain elusive. One of which praised both graphics and sounds, as well as the gameplay, considering that this is an unlicensed game after all and said that 'overall this is quite possibly the best bootleg game EVER made. And it's also simply a very good 2D fighter game as well.'
Another reviewer on GameSpot stated that this may look as 'a poor man's Super Smash Bros.' at the first glance, but in reality, it's a fun game.
Siliconera said that this game is purely Street Fighter II-inspired and that 'as a pirate NES game Kart Fighter is fairly advanced.'
Fragmaster of Gamespy's Classic Gaming stated that 'the names of most of the characters are changed slightly to avoid copyright problems' and that 'the game isn't as shoddily programmed as say… Somari… and you probably won't notice any slowdown or visual errors.'

Gallery

Video

Kart Fighter Walkthrough

Trivia

Not counting Mario, almost all the character's names are their original Japanese names. This is due to the origin of the game in the east near Japan and not in the west. (Like almost all pirated games are)
The creators have seemed to confuse Mario and Luigi. On the title screen, Mario is wearing a green hat and Luigi is wearing a red hat. Also note that their alternate palettes seem to be the other brother's palette but lighter.
Speaking of Luigi, while playing as him the commands for the uppercut and the kick attack seem to be executed by a command that a human can't do but the CPU can. This leaves Luigi to be an AI-only character. This is likely a bug in the game, seeing as Mario's commands work.
Bowser is the shortest character in the game. Going through the tiles, he seems to be the last character when the game was being made. This was likely because the size of the CHR banks prevented his sprite from being any larger.
Peach has black hair instead of blonde and has and wears a different outfit.
This game was likely made after Garou Densetsu Special since Donkey Kong Jr. has a ground projectile similar to Terry Bogard's Power Wave.
On the Top 8 screen, the last 0 in each score on the board is clearly different to the other 0's.
The Top 8 screen is real and your score appears after you get enough points, though it's a hard feat.(see above)

This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).

@@ Line 65: / Line 65: @@
 == Connections ==
-*Selecting Start or Option on the title screen plays an unused Chaos Emerald sound effect from [[Somari|''Somari'']].
+*Selecting Start or Option on the title screen plays an unused Chaos Emerald sound effect from [[Somari|''Somari'']]'', ''but this time, part of it is deleted.
 *The option screen uses [[Super Mario World (Famicom)|''Super Mario World''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s (Famicom)]] mushroom as the border and the cape spin sound when choosing the difficulty. Not only does it use the mushroom but there's other graphics (like the lava in the castle stage) that are also used in ''Super Mario World''.
 *The music in Donkey Kong Jr.'s stage is altered slightly from a music track in [[Jing Ke Xin Zhuan|''Jing Ke Xin Zhuan'']].