I wasn't sure of whether or not this game counted as obscure, but I think, in 2023, it does. It's a game that's been through a few phases, as far as its perception goes:I remember in the early 00s, when I was first dipping my toes into emulation and playing PC Engine games for the first time, Kaze Kiri was a game people were always quick to recommend. A few years later, the tide had turned a little bit, and people started saying it was a bit boring, repetitive, and overrated. Than a few more years and it was barely ever mentioned at all.
Until recently, I hadn't played it since that first era, when everyone loved it. I'd thought it was pretty good, too, but like I said, those were the days when I was first dipping my toes into emulation. I was playing lots of games for the first time, and for some reason, it wasn't one of the ones that really stuck with me. From my recent playtime with it, I can only assume I wasn't ready for it yet. It's a single plane beat em up, a genre that a lot of people misunderstand as being the over-simple vestigial ancestor to the belt scrolling beat em up. But it's also a genre for which I've grown a huge amount of appreciation in recent years. There's a lot that can be done in the genre, and even today, there's games pushing it forward, like Ninja Saviors (which is a remake, but with enough new stuff that it still be considered an advancement).
Kaze Kiri came out in 1994. The PC Engine was already an elderly console, an 8-bit that was still somehow trundling on as the age of the 32-bits was just starting to dawn. But as well as impressive ports from other systems, like Asuka 120% Burning Festival, it was still getting original games with enough new ideas and enough raw talent in their production that it sometimes didn't look like the old grandpa that it was. Kaze Kiri is one such game. The first thing that hits you about it is of course the presentation, in particular, the intro that's made up of incredible-looking full screen pixel animation. The game itself looks amazing, too with animated backgrounds and detailed sprites. Sometimes, you get something that combines the two, like an especially great-looking bossfight against a big clockwork robot in a candlelit room, the flickering light reflecting off its metal armour.
The game itself is more advanced than you might expect, too. A year prior, Shinobi III, another hardware-pushing ninja action game had appeared on a more powerful console, the Mega Drive. Shinobi III had a complex-but-intuitive control scheme that allowed a whole bunch of different commands to be mapped to only the d-pad and three buttons. I can only wonder if that was an influence on Kaze Kiri, which performs a similar feat with a d-pad and only two buttons. You can walk, run, and jump, as you'd expect. You can also throw kunai and swing your sword. Plus, you can run, perform a dive kick, a slide kick across the ground, and do quick flips backwards and forwards. None of this is complicated, and you'll figure it all out within a few seconds of starting the game. Then you get on with what the game is: fighting lots of enemies until you've killed enough to fight the stage's boss. It's a simple formula, executed with mountains of style and panache.
There's a couple more steps towards modernity, too! Your ability to throw kunai is limited not by a specific supply of the throwing blades, but instead by the fact that doing so depletes your health a tiny amount. On its own, that would be annoying. Maybe even unfair. But couple with the very twenty-first century design decision of having your health constantly (but very slowly) regenerating, it makes total sense as yet another way of streamlining all the game's many systems, making a faster and simpler game while still putting a relatively huge amount of tools and possibilities into the player's hands. Just like the control scheme!
After reading all that, it won't surprise you to hear that I recommend Kaze Kiri. To everyone! Go and play it! It's the kind of incredible, high-quality game that can really make you excited about videogames and their design. Don't give a penny to the scamming bastards on ebay, but play this game at your earliest convenience. It's an essential play for anyone who appreciates action games, and it should re-rise to its formerly-held position of prominence in the PC Engine library.
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