Phantom Fighter (NES) Playthrough

A playthrough of FCI's 1990 action game for the NES, Phantom Fighter.

Phantom Fighter isn't a game that's often brought up when people get to talking about the NES. It's certainly not as obscure as stuff like Times of Lore, Thunder & Lightning, or KlashBall (and props to you if you know those games without having to look them up!), but it sits firmly among the lesser known titles in the console's US library.

I find that a bit sad because it's a fun, decently built game that deserves some sort of recognition, however scant. It's neither good enough to be hailed as a classic nor bad enough to have earned itself any notoriety, so it ends up being one of the many games left to languish in the hinterlands of the retro gaming landscape. Okay, okay, maybe that's overdramatizing things a bit, but anyway...

In the world of Phantom Fighter, rural Chinese villages are being overrun by kyonshi. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, kyonshi are zombie-like creatures from Chinese folklore that are often referred to as hopping vampires. Think of the jumping girl enemies from Super Mario Land or Hsien-Ko from Darkstalkers and you've got the right idea.

You assume the role of Kenchi, a kung fu master who has been summoned to save the villagers from their plight. There are eight villages to purge, and in each you'll have to collect the three red orbs in order to unlock the entrance to the boss's lair.

Each village has several buildings that you'll need to search and clear to earn scrolls (which can be traded for moves and character upgrades), special items, and random bits of info from the locals. The most important, though, are the temples (offering unlimited free healing) and training schools (where you'll spend your scrolls) - these two places will act as your homebase in each town.

When you enter a building, you'll fight a series of one-on-one battles against the vampires, and these guys differ in terms of size, speed, power, and strategy. The game feels a little clunky at first, but that's by design - you start out with a single punch and a single kick, but things smooth out nicely as you learn new techniques and upgrade your character's movement speed, and the growth curve gives the game a satisfying sense of progression. The goofy sense of humor (especially in the quizzes!) and the crusty English translation give it a lot of personality, too.

The graphics are great: the sprites are large, there's little flicker, and there's a ton of detail packed into the backdrops - just check out the work put into the tiling for the bamboo thickets, or how some of those hardwood floors are shaded to look like they're reflecting the wall details! The catchy music fits the theme well, too.

I really like Phantom Fighter. It's not as polished as it could be, but if you can see past its occasional control foibles and the excessive padding that dogs the pacing of the last few stages, it's unique and compelling enough to make it worth a play. After all, there aren't many NES games that adhere this faithfully to the classic, old-fashioned Asian horror motifs, and I appreciate how much its sense of style diverges from the norm. The box art is pretty killer, too. So much hot pink!

The concept alone makes it worth trying out - I mean, who wouldn't want to judo chop armies of hopping vampires into oblivion?

And here's a fun bit of trivia: before it was localized for its North American release, Phantom Fighter was a license-based movie tie-in. The original 1988 Famicom game, Reigendoushi (殭屍先生), was named after the Japanese-language version of the 1985 Hong Kong film Mr. Vampire.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!