Kendo Rage (Super Nintendo)

Kendo Rage (Super Nintendo)

Kendo Rage is a side-scrolling hack and slash game for the Super Nintendo that was released in 1993. There are seven levels with a boss at the end of each level. The story involves a girl named Jo who travels to Japan to attend a summer Kendo school. The instructor gives her some kind of magic talisman that turns her into a super warrior and is also taught psychic abilities. Then she is instructed to fight monsters on the way to class. Pretty typical stuff for a Kendo school in Japan I imagine. So with a great story like that, the game play must be equally great, right? Pretty much. This is a pretty mediocre game. It isn't terrible but there's also nothing that really sets it apart from similar (and often better) games. However, if your into playing the role of a cute anime girl with a sword who has bad-ass magical and psychic powers then this may be the game for you. Game Players magazine gave it a pretty positive review in their November 1993 issue (see above). Unfortunately, this is not a game that was every popular enough to be re-made or re-released. Interestingly, there was a sequel of sorts though it was purely a fighting game and was released only in Japan on both the Super Famicom and later the PlayStation. There was also an RPG in this series released for the PC-FX. However, if you want to play the original, you'll have to track down the cartridge or resort to emulation and I'm pretty sure that goes for the other games in the series too. This game is pretty expensive these days presumably because of its relative rarity. This was not a particularly popular or well known game.