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In last week's Kusoge Sunday, I made the case that kusoge are gaming's equivalent of the b-movie, and should be appreciated as such. That’s a good thing when it involves unknown designers trying something new and crazy, even if it ultimately fails. It can also be a bad thing, though. Just as b-movie distributors have historically been willing to make promises they have no hope of keeping just to get audiences into theaters, purveyors of kusoge are not always above dressing up a dismal game with a title that suggests it might actually be fun and exciting.
Such is the case with Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu. Developed by Taiwanese kusoge purveyors Sachen (under the alias Joy Van), the game’s original Chinese title translates to something like “Handsome Pirates.” That was changed when the game was published in the U.S. by Color Dreams, in perhaps the only moment of genuine inspiration that company ever had.
Sadly, the game utterly fails to live up to either of its titles, being neither good looking nor a fun martial arts romp. In fact, Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu is an unqualified disaster. It should be enough to say that the game seems to have taken its primary inspiration from The Legend of Kage, itself no masterpiece. Chu looks, jumps and fights like a bargain basement version of Kage, and the title screen even shows him standing on a high tree branch.
The similarities stop there, though. While The Legend of Kage at least attempted something different with its focus on vertical gameplay, Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu is just a dreary side-scrolling action game. The object of each stage is to collect eight hidden yin-yang symbols, which opens a door to the boss room. Each level is about three screens wide, and the yin-yangs are uncovered by simply shooting at everything and hoping that one appears. Just in case that’s not bad enough, the symbols are often hidden above traps in such a way that it seems impossible to avoid taking damage while collecting them.
As bad as that is, the game has worse in store. Both characters (Hu is playable in the two player mode, but controls exactly like Chu) are woefully underpowered. Even the weakest enemies take three or four shots to go down, and bosses feel almost invulnerable. It doesn’t help that all of the characters have weird hit boxes and there’s no feedback to let you know if you or the enemies are actually taking damage. Pressing B causes Chu to swing a fan, and on a few random occasions this seems to block projectile attacks. However, the timing is either completely unintuitive, or the mechanic is simply broken, as attempting to block the projectiles that stream out of bosses usually leads to a quick death.
It’s hard to say whether Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu is an improvement over Color Dreams’ own attempts at game development. On one hand, it looks worlds better. Even though the level designs are depressingly bad, the characters at least don’t look like google-eyed monstrosities. But as floaty and loose as the average Color Dreams game is, it at least it feels like you could, with enough practice, acclimate to the controls and persevere to the end. Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu, on the other hand, feels like it was released before they added the code that makes your attacks actually damage enemies. In short, it looks marginally better, but is essentially unplayable.
That’s a shame, because Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu may be the best title ever conceived for an NES game. Maybe someday gaming will find its Quentin Tarantino, and he or she will make the game that everyone Color Dreams suckered in with this title was actually hoping for.
Such is the case with Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu. Developed by Taiwanese kusoge purveyors Sachen (under the alias Joy Van), the game’s original Chinese title translates to something like “Handsome Pirates.” That was changed when the game was published in the U.S. by Color Dreams, in perhaps the only moment of genuine inspiration that company ever had.Sadly, the game utterly fails to live up to either of its titles, being neither good looking nor a fun martial arts romp. In fact, Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu is an unqualified disaster. It should be enough to say that the game seems to have taken its primary inspiration from The Legend of Kage, itself no masterpiece. Chu looks, jumps and fights like a bargain basement version of Kage, and the title screen even shows him standing on a high tree branch.
The similarities stop there, though. While The Legend of Kage at least attempted something different with its focus on vertical gameplay, Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu is just a dreary side-scrolling action game. The object of each stage is to collect eight hidden yin-yang symbols, which opens a door to the boss room. Each level is about three screens wide, and the yin-yangs are uncovered by simply shooting at everything and hoping that one appears. Just in case that’s not bad enough, the symbols are often hidden above traps in such a way that it seems impossible to avoid taking damage while collecting them.
As bad as that is, the game has worse in store. Both characters (Hu is playable in the two player mode, but controls exactly like Chu) are woefully underpowered. Even the weakest enemies take three or four shots to go down, and bosses feel almost invulnerable. It doesn’t help that all of the characters have weird hit boxes and there’s no feedback to let you know if you or the enemies are actually taking damage. Pressing B causes Chu to swing a fan, and on a few random occasions this seems to block projectile attacks. However, the timing is either completely unintuitive, or the mechanic is simply broken, as attempting to block the projectiles that stream out of bosses usually leads to a quick death.It’s hard to say whether Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu is an improvement over Color Dreams’ own attempts at game development. On one hand, it looks worlds better. Even though the level designs are depressingly bad, the characters at least don’t look like google-eyed monstrosities. But as floaty and loose as the average Color Dreams game is, it at least it feels like you could, with enough practice, acclimate to the controls and persevere to the end. Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu, on the other hand, feels like it was released before they added the code that makes your attacks actually damage enemies. In short, it looks marginally better, but is essentially unplayable.
That’s a shame, because Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu may be the best title ever conceived for an NES game. Maybe someday gaming will find its Quentin Tarantino, and he or she will make the game that everyone Color Dreams suckered in with this title was actually hoping for.
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