NES Games No One Played: Letter K

All the way through to the end, baby!

I’ve got a pretty extensive NES collection and have for years been writing about the best games for the system while also trying to collect every title. As such, I feel like I’ve spent tons of time playing all the great games while the lesser known titles usually come in the mail and go straight onto the shelf. I wanted to make more of an effort to explore the entire library of the NES, not just the classics, and so I’m trying out some buddies I either popped in and immediately out or never played in the first place. Since I’ve got them organized alphabetically, let’s continue on with the Letter K.

• Letter A can be found here
• Letter B can be found here
• Letter C can be found here
• Letter D can be found here
• Letter E can be found here
• Letter F can be found here
• Letter G can be found here
• Letter H can be found here
• Letter I can be found here
• Letter J can be found here

KID KLOWN IN NIGHT MAYOR WORLD | 1993

Jesus Christ that title: woof. Kid Klown was originally a Disney game for the Famicom: “Mickey Mouse III: Yume Fuusen” and for some unknown reason when it came to America they re-skinned it with this baby juggalo looking motherfucker. The story is that Mr. and Mrs. Klown, accompanied by their boys Kid and Baby, are standing out in the rain in Kansas when the Night Mayor shows up, steals Kid’s family, and now it’s up to KK to get them back. Holy shit guys Kid Klown from Kansas? I’d always joked that this was a children’s game secretly masquerading as a recruiting vehicle for the KKK, but by god it’s actually true!

The graphics are pretty plain and Kid Klown looks like a muddled smudge on the screen, kinda like someone stepped on a blueberry. However, some of the other sprite work is pretty decent and varied, similar to late life NES titles like Panic Restaurant and Bonk’s Adventure. There are some cool transition effects between levels that mirror some of the Mode 7 / Blast Processing effects and that the SNES and Genesis were showing off at the time; not at all to their level but still impressive for the NES. The mid level cutscenes are also pretty decent, at least visually, the story’s still dumb as shit.

The gameplay? Well honestly it’s a decent platformer. The controls utilize a unique idea in that Kid Klown attacks with balloons which can be thrown one at a time or held in front of him and released when needed (a la the M Buster from the Mega Man series). When you hold onto the balloon not only are you better prepared to hit a squirmy enemy, but you also now float as you jump and you’ll need this ability to cross certain pits. However, holding this balloon also makes KK slower so there are times where it’s not advantageous to do so. So that’s all pretty positive right? Yeah, I guess. Honestly this seems like a game geared toward young children (both in the subject matter, visuals, and music) and as such it’s both extremely easy and pretty boring. Like I know I’m an adult now and all, but even at age ten I would’ve thought this was pretty weak stuff.

This may seem petty, but with rare exception do I like any game where pressing pause takes you to a new screen with new music. Like for every Battletoads or Super Mario Bros. 2 there’s a game like Kid Klown where the same mediocre 5 second loop repeats endlessly. In writing these articles, I’m constantly pausing the game in order to write down notes and every time I pause Kid Klown I groan because this inane shit is still playing in the background, mixing up my thoughts and driving me fucking crazy.

Similar Games: Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle

KING’S KNIGHT | 1989

The Letter K, home to the alliterative titles! King’s Knight was published by Square of Final Fantasy fame so I assumed it too would be an RPG, but psych! Vertically scrolling shooter! Bet you didn’t see that one coming! And while at first it does resemble every 80’s “slow moving blast everything in site arcadish style” title, it actually has a lot of unique elements to it.

Instead of playing as one character traversing various levels in sequence, you actually play as four characters who each are trying to beat a specific level. There’s “Knight ‘Ray Jack’”, “Wizard ‘Kaliva’”, “Monster ‘Barusa’” (who is just the most adorable little dragon boy), and of course “Kid Thief ‘Toby’”. Until I got to Toby I was thinking these were all super weed-heavy metal bands on tour with Kylesa and Sleep. Who knows maybe Toby is the “dopest” of them all! Even though your attacks are the same for each character, they do have totally different screens with new enemies and obstacles so it kind of feels like you’re playing four different but incredibly similar games back to back to back to back.

The other thing that makes King’s Knight unique is that you don’t just shoot the enemies you shoot everything on the screen, EVERYTHING. Mountains, bushes, buildings, fences, and this isn’t just to collect items, these objects are barriers in your way and if you don’t remove them you will be crushed by the almightiest of 8-bit enemies: the bottom of the TV screen. Oooooohhhh spooky! Occasionally you’ll find power ups, but mostly you’ll find UP Arrows and DOWN Arrows which give or take away health. And in this way King’s Knight is also a weird maze because not only are you avoiding enemies and their projectiles, but you have to carefully shoot your path through the obstacles because more often than not you’ll find a sea of Down Arrows blocking your progress. Bonus, you can also find stairs which lead to an underground cave level with a boss fight at the end. Neat!

My only complaint is that this game is not only pretty tough but the one death character change is a pretty big bummer! What happened to Ray Jack? If I beat the level as Barusa do I get a different ending? I see from a walkthrough that the last level is all four of your awesome dudes moving together in a square fighting toward the final boss a huge dragon! If I only make it with one guy is he all alone in the last level? Questions for the ages my friends!

Similar Games: Adventures of Dino Riki

KLASHBALL | 1991

I initially confused this game with another obscurish NES game, Rollerball, probably because Klashball’s cover art for sure resembles the 1975 sci-fi roller death sports film “Rollerball”. Turns out that the NES title of the same name is an entirely unrelated pinball game and Klashball is the truest form of the James Caan “classic”. I’m just kidding, Rollerball the movie is stupid awesome and Klashball is just stupid awful.

Klashball takes an overhead view approach to what is essentially 5 v 5 hockey, but with the way the ball pings around uncontrollably it really more resembles air hockey. You can either shoot (press A) while on offense or you can tackle (press B) while on defense, which means that at any given time you only use one button and it alternates. BOOOOOO!! How do you pass? Well, by shooting and then getting in the way of your own shot. WHO NEEDS TWO BUTTONS AM I RIGHT?!? There are goals at each end, and there’s also these holes in the floor that shit out power-ups from time to time but even after reading up on what they do I have yet to see any benefit to them. Same goes for these Pac-Man style doors on the left and right where you can shoot the ball through one side and out the other. No idea how that could ever help you in the game. Your best strategy is just to mash B when you don’t have the ball and then run all the way to the other goal to score, avoiding any conceivable strategy along the way. It ain’t exactly Super Dodgeball.

For a sports title, the graphics aren’t too bad but for sure they do nothing to help this game. What else is there to discuss…music? Well, after the title screen there is no music, just a few incredibly generic Atari style sound effects to convey that the ball is bouncing and the robot people are Klashing.

The worst part about this game is not the graphics or the control or the sound, it’s the FIFTEEN SECONDS it takes between a goal being scored and the gameplay restarting. It makes what should be little 2 minute matches take 15–20 minutes. That is insane. And it’s not like in Tecmo Super Bowl where there’s some rad cutscenes of players celebrating, nah it’s just you staring at blankly at the screen, wondering if somehow you broke the game. Once you’re lulled into this dazed state, WATCH OUT!, the computer scored again. AND then the waiting resumes…it is a truly mindnumbing experience.

Similar Games: Fun House, Smash TV

KNIGHT RIDER | 1991

Ahhh Knight Rider. Famous for it’s wundermensch star David Hasselhoff, it’s bad ass talking car KITT, and that ridiculously hot title music. When I was in college that song “Mundian to Bach Ke” became popular and it just blew my mind that this dude sampled the Knight Rider theme. It remains one of the few times you could find me on any dancefloor and until these new too cool for school djs start playing it again it’ll probably be the last!

Anyway, they made a Knight Rider game! You’ll notice if you’ve read any of my past articles that TV/Movie licensed games pop-up a bit. It’s not that I think they’re especially interesting, it’s more that I’m often surprised that they exist! I mean The Untouchables was a huge movie in 1987 but how many people played the NES game four years later? What about Cool World? Cliffhanger? Last Action Hero? These were all really famous pop culture properties back in the day but for some reason no one really played their NES counterparts.

Knight Rider is <SURPRISE> a Rad Racer style driving simulator. You can shoot with A, and I’m really not sure if I’m just supposed to shoot certain cars or trucks or just shoot everyone (which I do, most gleefully). Pressing B makes the car JUMP which is a really funny and fun thing to do in this kind of first person racing game. Not only is it a slower and less effective way to avoid other cars, but once you jump you have no control over where the car lands. The road drifts below and the sky appears before you, then you either land harmless or hilariously drop on another car monster truck style. Your goal is basically to drive from one city to the next in order to complete an overly complicated sounding mission that’s really just “you made it, then did that thing offscreen!” You have an opportunity to upgrade various things on your car a la R.C. Pro Am, but since I can’t complete even one level I’m not sure if these upgrades help in anyway going forward. Like most racing games the levels are timed, but you also have limited gas and health so any one of those will spell game over.

There’s two modes: Mission and Drive. I’m not really sure what the point of Drive is though as it’s the same game but you can’t shoot and no one shoots at you. In my mind it was like a super chill inside the car view where Michael Knight is just cruising around with some feather haired babe while KITT occasionally cracks wise but instead it’s like if they gave you the option of playing Super Mario Bros but none of the enemies move and you can’t jump on any of them, only avoid and keep going.

The whole time I was playing this I was thinking how awesome this would be if it had the varied gameplay style of Vice: Project Doom (driving levels, shooting levels, platforming levels), but then I realized I could just stop playing Knight Rider and play that game instead.

Similar Games: Rad Racer mixed with Spy Hunter

OTHER LETTER K GAMES (CLASSICS)

Kirby’s Adventure, Kid Icarus, Kickle Cubicle, Kickmaster, Kung Fu, Kiwi Kraze, Kabuki Quantum Fighter

OTHER LETTER K GAMES WORTH TRYING

Krion Conquest, Karnov, Kings of the Beach, King’s Quest V, Krusty’s Fun House

OTHER LETTER K GAMES WORTH AVOIDING

Karate Champ, Kung Fu Heroes, Kid Kool, Kid Niki: Radical Ninja