409 - Jackie Chan's Action Kung-Fu

Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu! Jackie and his sister Josephine are tough on tyrants. And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. First off, Jackie Chan does not have a sister named Josephine. I was Googling it right this moment. I was like, does he really have a sister? He has two half-siblings. Or either of them, Josephine.

I don't even think he knew. No, they are not. And I don't think he knew either of his half siblings until after this game came out. So there's some kind of like family drama that we haven't gotten like privy to. Right. But it just begs the question, how involved can Jackie Chan be if they're also just like making up his sister? He wouldn't have agreed to that, right?

I don't know. Why not? If he didn't know about his real siblings, why not? Maybe he's always wanted a sibling. If you're making a game about me, I say have at it. Give me siblings. Because I was thinking maybe it was like pitched originally as like, oh, this is the princess. And he was like, no, I don't do that. You know, like I don't, I'm an eligible guy. I need to be related. Right, right. Yeah. I wanted to be my sister, I see.

Also, tough on tyrants. Is that really like a stance? Does anyone not have that stance in life? Like, is that really a core value? Yeah, tyrants probably don't. That's true, but they don't know that they're the tyrants. I guess that's the problem with the world.

By the time this game hit in 1990, Jackie Chan was a gigantic star in Hong Kong, but didn't really have his breakout American films yet. He had films that were... shown in america police story and stuff like that but he didn't have like he didn't have the same cultural zeitgeist i feel like he has now so it's kind of interesting that he he can still

get a name on the box you know jackie chan's action kung fu it's not like we get uh you know arnold schwarzenegger's and terminator or something right Yeah, I don't know. I'm not actually super familiar with Jackie Chan's history before he was an actor, but I'm assuming he was actually an athletic martial artist performing in competitions and stuff.

I'm guessing. Maybe he was known from that kind of thing. He was really known for the Hong Kong movies. He had done many. You're saying this was before. No, this is before his, like, American movies. Oh, I see. Yeah, he was making kung fu flicks way before he got big in the States. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so he's known. Yes, yes, but, like, in a broad sense, not in, like, I'm not sure how aware.

uh kids in the 90s would have been aware of him if it's more like the kind of stuff you might see in like grindhouse yeah i i guess that's true i mean i feel like maybe it's because i'm coming at this from like we've seen a lot of uh of people on the covers or big names in games that we don't recognize because we didn't grow up in the 80s. Or just because I'm not into a lot of sports. Or like Lee Trevino. Like Al Unser. Al Unser Jr.

Oh yeah, it's true. So yeah, it feels like sometimes they maybe go for like not, they do, they do put people on here that are like not the most well-known to kids. Right. Uh, I, I think like rumble in the Bronx probably would have been. Jackie's breakout role in the States, and that was 95. So he still got a little bit. Yeah, I didn't really know who he was until, you know, like rush hour.

And so Jackie's here in a side-scrolling action platformer game. You play as him, knocking around. I mean, first off, he's kind of cute. He's like a little chibi version of Jackie Chan. And then, like, everything in the game is also kind of cute, even if the tigers are going to eat you alive. They're all drawn kind of in this, like...

You know, I don't really want to punch this snake in the face, but if it's coming at me, I guess I have to fight back. And that's like the general thing. It feels more like a cartoon. than a kung fu action movie. If we go back all the way to the launch games, kung fu itself did not have this kind of kiddish feel to it that this Jackie Chan game does.

Yeah, it's got the, like, less, I mean, it's funny to say this on the NES, but, like, less realistic proportions where it's, like, a little more, like, big head, smaller body, cartoony, like, yeah, chibi style, like you said, that makes it a little more cute. Whereas Kung Fu, you know, I think... I could squint and imagine that as like a real person. How much do you think that looks like Jackie Chan? Almost none. Yeah. But you know, it's funny. It's not, it's not even like.

It's not even a complaint I have about this game specifically in the sequels and spinoff section, which I'll get to later. It's just worth mentioning that every game with the exception of the ones that like use digitization of him. Don't really look like how I picture Jackie Chan, but maybe that's an us problem because we're thinking of rush hour. Yeah. Always rush hour. Always. It's always on my mind. They're making the fourth one.

non-controversial really yeah I forgot there was even a third one yeah I remember that one I don't think I saw that one but I was a big one and two fan back in the day two had like a

tremendous response and that actually like it was how i i didn't even know about the first one until i heard about two everybody's telling me like two is like the funniest movie they ever watched and then i went back and watched both and i agree great movies do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth mike

I do. Okay. But yeah, so the feel of the game here, besides the kind of inconsequential plot that... Oh, the wizard. Yeah, wizard kidnaps fake sister and you gotta go save her as you clear these levels. It's really just like Jackie Chan going through... five stages of pretty long length. Just going through it. Just going through it. I mean, you know, if your sister was kidnapped and then you also had to do like the, you know, travel this kind of. Yeah, exactly.

Also, I always wonder about that. They show you the world map, right? And it kind of like zigs and zags. Isn't there like a straighter path that avoids all this shit to get to the sorcerer? That's a good question. I mean, he's going up. At least. I'm glad that he can at least generally move up. But there is a lot of stuff in the way. And so as you're moving through this map and you...

There's five total stages, which sounds short, but it actually like, you know, there's multiple screens within each of these stages. And some of the levels actually feel like. it's unclear that uh because you really are traversing through like an entire area not just like oh this is the castle stage or this is the water stage it's like you're clearing through a lot

It's like movements. Yeah, but I guess that's what I'm saying, too, is like maybe he is moving in the most optimal path, and then they're just showing us this weird map of like he's zigging this way and he's zagging that way, but maybe that's just like the way it took to get there. Well, also, I mean, I do think that even though there are only five things that the game considers a stage, I think within each of those, I feel like there are five stages. To me, it's like these are what five...

in any other game this would be five of its own stages and like every time i get to the end i'm like that's the end of the stage it's like oh no you just like went into a building but it almost looks like it almost looks like the end of like a super mario world level where you're gonna go between the two

the two poles like you're going that's how you go into ability looks like the end of a level to me and then it's just like no there's more of it right after this yeah i was gonna kind of bring into the sorry mike i was gonna sort of say that like mario is kind of like the

like low attention span version. Whereas this is like, Oh no, it's a full level. Like there's different places, but the same level, but sorry, Mike, you continue. No, no. I was just gonna say that, you know, while we covered like the, um, the cartoonish look of everything. I think it's worth saying that, uh, this is a really good looking game. Uh, so like the cartoon thing is working into its favor and not like some crudely drawn cran thing where it's like,

I think that while this game's graphics are, you know, pretty like chunky, so is the like action. The action is pretty like responsive, chunky, like generous hitboxes. Everything's like pretty.

readable and and there's like not too much confused if anything it's kind of confusing that Jackie can walk on water but then you can like figure out that like it's like maybe he's not walking on the water and you can fall down to the next area of the water so he's on like he's on like he's walking on like the top of a waterfall maybe he's walking along like the

the ridge of a babbling brook, you know, like he's walking on the rocks. And if you wait there too long, he slips off the rocks. See, I thought that I actually thought that you were like running on water. Cause like, that's how fast you are. You're running on water. Cause there's a fall in.

Because there's other water that you just walk into, like you go into the water and you kind of wade through the water. But that's surprising, right? That like you walk, you walk into this water. It's like in this kind of game, especially a game that's already like. in my opinion, kind of forgiving.

I was surprised to find out the first time I fell in the water that it wasn't a death. It wasn't like a pitfall, and you just continue to fall through the stage. You just chill in the water now, and then you're like, cool, I'm going to get out of the water and go back to the platform. Well, that was going to be a word that I used to discuss.

like you know the actual gameplay of this is it's like very forgiving around like just around the whole thing like whether it's like pitfalls not being pitfalls you just kind of fall down to the screen below you're you're you actually can swim which maybe this is like a thing that jackie actually like required requested like i can swim you can't make me die if i fall into water

Who knows? I know that he's got some things. Whatever you want to do with my siblings, family history, anything, fine. As long as I can swim. Yeah, I just feel like he's got some, like, probably some weird requests. But I would also, like, to the original point about just the... The visuals of this game. I think we usually kind of complain about massive sprites. Whether it just makes them kind of unwieldy.

Or if it just doesn't fit. I remember Godzilla is just massive and it's kind of weird. But I think it actually worked out in this. Everything kind of...

holistically works together and it doesn't get in the way of itself and uh yeah yeah for me it's not even about the size of the sprite it's it's about like how clean the sprites are and how like I think that this is probably something we've talked about in the past too. The more fine detail you try to put into a sprite, especially on the NES, the sloppier it looks a lot of the time.

Whereas this, it's like, no, it's just a clean drawing. It's not trying to be like, this is a photorealistic human, the best thing we can do on the NES. But like, everything is clean. I think, Mike, you used the word readable. I think that that is like the biggest...

like help in this game everything is everything is crisp there's a clear edge to everything it's like the everything is filled with like a single colors they're not trying to do any shading or anything and you can tell what everything is and it's got its own like nice little style

I think that kind of thing is always there, even in PS2 games and stuff. I mean, obviously now it's not so much, but you go back to some PS2 games and they're like, okay, they've aged poorly because they're trying to be so detailed. But then you look at, well, I'll say it, Kingdom Hearts, where it's like, yeah, that doesn't look realistic, but it's like cartoony. And therefore everything is clear and like easy to read. And it looks good because it's got a style. That walk cycle.

He's got frames for days, man. I think they also just nailed making a guy who's kind of a badass feel like a badass when you're playing at him. It's like... His attacks aren't necessarily anything too cool. He has some special moves that have a little more flair to them. But it just makes sense that you're playing as Jackie Chan. You should...

You should be the one kicking butt, not the other way around. I never get that with some games. Obviously, Clint Eastwood and Jackie Chan are two different kinds of badasses, but they're both in the category of badass. But Dirty Harry...

felt terrible to control by comparison and it's like why wouldn't you want to make like that character the the the strong one in the game and the enemies just kind of like fodder that you have to get through in this game if anything too it's like it's kind of fun to fight the enemies And they're inconsequential. You could just skip right over them and continue on with the platforming part. And the way that they dole out these enemies isn't like the screen is ever littered.

With like, you know, oh, you got to take care of these guys because more are going to keep spawning in. It's very deliberately placed, you know, checking a lot of the boxes of the stuff we like when it comes to these platformer games specifically. But as one that's also like an action platformer, I think the limited move set with the addition of the ones that you can pick up as like limited time moves feels...

Like, everything has clear hitboxes, one-hit KOs, and makes progression not a chore of, like, hold on, I gotta, like... With the exception of, like, some tigers and some bigger enemies, it's not... hold on i gotta fight this guy and hit him like six times before i can move to the right you move through this these stages as big as they are pretty quickly yeah and i think to your point about like it being uh you feeling like a badass

I've always just felt like it took the game industry as a whole a really long time to realize that it's not better to look at it like, oh, it's hard to do the things that Jackie Chan does, so... let's make it this game hard to do those things like there's a lot of games that are like about about something that's very difficult whether it's a sport or a some a fighting style whatever where it's like oh that's really difficult so it's a really difficult game i think slowly

people started to realize, oh no, we want wish fulfillment here. We want people to feel like they can do this stuff even if they can't. And that's what this game does instead of like... Instead of making it like, yeah, it's really tough to be a kung fu master. It's like, yeah, this is what it would be like if you were one. Joe, what I know about video games in general is that if I want to be...

a Ghostbuster or if I want to pretend to be a Ghostbuster I want to know what it's like to have to run that business I want to know what it's like to have to that's true you know what I mean Ghostbusters is the one exception where they did everything right nothing wrong with that game at all

And then the way you get power-ups is interesting. I don't know what it's a reference to, but you just punch frogs and they burp out the power-up. Maybe that's some Hong Kong folklore I'm missing, but I think it's cute. It's got a nice animation to it. It's a little different than eating a mushroom and getting bigger, right?

They're not power-ups in that sense either of the Mario way. Still psychedelic. Right, sure. They give you special moves that, first off, have a great inclusion in the user interface where you don't just like... Get a letter that tells you like what the, you know, like, oh, if you're doing the backflip, it's like you get a B as your as your thing on the UI. You actually see like.

The motion for a backflip or for a kick in the air or for a somersault. It's like those are those extra drawings are really helpful, too, in like making every part of this game feel like. they thought through, like, the actual experience, which is not something that most NES games, like, go all in on. I think what we're really, what we really like here... is is just they really like they made it really user friendly yes and and maybe maybe we're over maybe there's a little bit of uh

like being a little too, too nice to the game. But when they don't, when the game doesn't waste your time, like a lot of games that we played, uh, Then it's it's it's pretty easy to sing its praises and I don't have any actual comment on the things that you've called out But I just I just wanted to note that

in regard to our tone during this episode. Right, well, yeah, because, okay, the game is definitely easier than most NES games we play, and so it's kind of like welcome in the year 2025 to be playing a game that... feels good to kind of clear but i would not describe this as like a an easy game on the way that games are today like there's still plenty of pattern recognition and like

understanding like you know what enemies are coming up ahead or i'm thinking about those fireballs um i think they're in the second stage but they're also kind of like littered throughout they they have an arc that that is kind of like you're gonna take a hit But also it's kind of like, okay, take the hit then because they give you a pretty generous health bar too. This kind of game being as easy as it is, didn't necessarily need to give you, you know, six hits to death because...

You would think in other harder platformers, it's like one hit and you're dead. But this kind of understands and adopts a lot of the rules of other games we like, such as Super Mario Brothers, Mega Man, and just the attention. to detail on everything i think while maybe like simpler isn't better overall it helps in the sense of like you know it makes it harder to complain about things because what they didn't add doesn't make it feel empty

Yeah. There are bonus stages in addition to the five main stages, but they are like bonus levels that happen inside those stages. You sometimes see a bell and if you hit that bell or ring that bell. You warp to a little minigame and the minigame, I think there's two. I think there's the one where you bounce on the clouds, which is like a little unclear to me because I get that it's just about points and everything, but like.

He's on a cloud. Then there's other clouds, like mini ones that are platformers. You jump on those and each one of those you land on gives you like a score at the end. But there's no penalty for like... missing the clouds and just falling back through like no you just land on another cloud and you continue to get like a chance so now it's almost like wait a minute is this a game for babies like there's actually like very little consequence

going on here. Well, it's a bonus level. I mean, you're not getting points for it. In the consequences, you get a lower score. Yeah. Yeah. But, like, score doesn't... Score never matters.

I think that it matters in terms of, like, the reward that you get. Yeah, that is true. Yeah. Like, that's what it's there for. Like, you can get into... uh you can get an extra continue which i guess is just to clarify there are no lives in this game there is only continues so that's your extra live uh you can get more super mega action points

and health through there so i mean that's your thing i mean you know i wouldn't want to lose a life because i did bad in a bonus level well you're a baby i am a baby that's true so am i though so and then the other one you're like punching statues for points as well. I guess that one feels more like at least something Jackie Chan would do. The cloud hopping really does feel like it's coming out of nowhere. That's the psychedelic part.

Okay, yeah. I was all in on this game until they had something so completely out of left field as jumping on clouds. Well, is there a set piece in any of these levels that could rival the stuff that Jackie was doing on screen? You know, like, are you really doing any sort of... martial arts stuff or or facing off against anybody who's uh creating a uh obviously cinematic isn't the right word but like something to level or rival what was happening yeah you know now that you mention it

I am kind of surprised. It is just a really good game where you fight weird monsters and enemies and stuff. And punch frogs. I've got to imagine that like most of his movies he was fighting other people. which was like very little of that actually. Yeah. It's not really till like the end. I mean, there's other like little grunts and stuff, but they're, they're kind of like interactive. It's, it's the, uh, the, at the end when you fight the, um,

Yeah, who's that little guy from Dragon Ball Z? Krillin? No, no, no, the littler guy. He wears like a dress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You fight him at one point. Yeah, yeah. Well, and he's even doing the Kamehameha pose, so maybe there is something going on there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, yeah, that's like, that's a fight where it's like, oh, this is actually like another person, same scale and everything. They have their own moveset that's similar to ours. But, you know, like, it's kind of interesting because at the time. Jackie was doing like police story and like treasure hunts and stuff like that. And, and then this, this game kind of has like this.

cartoon Saturday morning vibe going for it. Does that matter at all that it's not doing the gritty police drama? Did they put Jackie in the right game here? Yeah, it's funny because I feel like... I feel like he belongs more in this game now, in retrospect, just because of the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon and everything. But I don't really know, because based on what it sounds like, this is not the type of movie he was in.

in in general unless there was some kind of like fantasy movie that he was in like fantasy kung fu movie with a little more like um you know a little more non-fiction fantasy stuff in there but like it just Yeah, I didn't bat an eye at it because I'm coming from a modern perspective where Jackie Chan has been in content like this. Well, I mean, I actually don't have an answer to this, but when you...

You made me think of, like, when you mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator, like, I would play a cutesy Terminator game. Like, where, like, maybe you're playing as... Arnold Schwarzenegger from the first Terminator and just sort of ruining the resistance and being the robot uprising, like kill all the humans.

But cute. Like, I think that would be cool. There should be a cute version of every property. Yes. I'm actually not opposed to that for what it's worth. I want to see, like... Kratos as his sack boy version. Well, he's in, isn't he in, what's it called? What's the new PlayStation one? Astro Bot. Astro Bot, yeah. There you go. Yep.

But if you map these moves over to a fighting game, right? Like Jackie's not going to be able to compete against Street Fighter characters. He doesn't have like enough of a move set. Again, to the game's benefit, like... Less is more here because you don't want to find out that you have to do button input combos. To do any of his special moves, it's just like, again, borrowing another thing from another great NES game. Castlevania, you just...

hold up on the d-pad and do the attack move, and now you do the special move instead of the normal move, just like you would in Castlevania when you have a secondary weapon. But you know what I mean? It's like... The kung fu moves, I mean, this doesn't feel like a mixed martial arts master, right? Well, it's not mixed martial arts. That's something else. Oh, right, right. That's true. He's just displaying kung fu in this game.

I don't know. It kind of harkens back to me to the game Kung Fu, where it's like, yeah, they're not doing any crazy moves, but I think it's just the sharpness and the reach of the hitbox of your punches and kicks. that feel like oh yeah it feels like like oh it's not just a regular guy throwing a kick this is like someone who knows what they're doing and it like you know in in a sense for like a platformer like this where you're fighting little little one-hit enemies and stuff

i think it does work i mean i get what you're saying that it's like you're not like you're not holding up in a one-on-one fight with like equal competitors or anything and i feel like we have had a game like that where like it feels like a little more like

someone they block you have to block and think in you know there's a little more to uh like each encounter but but for what it is it did i think like to me evoke like okay this guy's a martial artist and not just like someone punching and kicking

I think that all boils down to just, like, polish. The game has a lot of polish, so everything feels better, even though it's super simple. And I didn't get here, but I know that, like, at the end of the game... you do have more so like a one-on-one fight against like, like a dark version of you or something, but that, that feels very different or at least it looks like it plays very different. Um,

So I don't think that there needs to be that much. As long as it feels good to do the things that it has, we're going to give it lots of praise. Yeah.

Did you guys die at all in the game? Of course. So the game over screen has a little bit of comedic effect as well. Yeah. I don't. It's fine. The game over screen has Jackie holding this like giant. I'm not even sure what it is. It kind of looks like a poop, but it could also be an acorn or something. It's just this big brown thing with the text game over.

And he's holding it up. And after you after that screen, you know, you have you can continue from the stage that you that you died on. But if you run out of continues. You see that same game over screen, but now the acorn thing actually crushes Jackie. And so it's like, again, another little personality thing to it.

uh that i don't know you don't even see too often in game over screens nowadays sometimes it's just like game over what was the game where oh uh all the arkham games where like after you die whoever killed you like gives like a little like thing to say to your dead body it's like that's a that's like the kind of touch that we need in video games of like the what happens after yeah that felt that felt fun or infuriating depending on who killed you

And then if it was Scarecrow, he'd tell you to push down the middle thumbstick or something like that. It's funny stuff. But speaking of reasons that I'm a baby, it's because I hate the continue thing. Like, I mean, I know this is like maybe because of the generation I grew up in and it wasn't as much of a thing in like the PlayStation 1 and beyond era, but running out of my continues, I don't want to start this game over again.

as much as i'm enjoying it like i just want to start where i left off i just want unlimited continues i i just just let me let me play the game i i know i know maybe that's too uh too forgiving but for me i'm just like that is like the

the one uh negative that i have of this experience is like i just want to keep playing but i don't want to redo everything i had to do already maybe i should just get better and not get to the continue screen yeah because even these kinds of games have like evolved a little bit to be you know

uh more like the roguelikes and everything where it's you know okay like you know yeah you gotta start the run over and everything but you you gain so much and like it right progress carries over it's like it seems like everybody's kind of done with this idea of like no you have to like

actually start the game over if you die. Yeah. It's hard for me to get my head around when it's not an arcade game and they're not trying to eat my quarters. I'm just like, well, just let me keep playing. Like a roguelike's designed around that and that's fine. But if it's just like, I don't... It's almost like, I don't know, how good do you think the first three levels of your game were that you think I want to play it over and over and over again?

But I know that's me coming out of a modern perspective, but that's where this feels aged. That's what we're here for. I also think it's weird that the game, the way that it uses its continues is more like lives. Because when I think of a continue, I think you've got to start all the way at the beginning of the level. And this game doesn't make you go back to the beginning of the level if you die. It brings you back to whatever screen or like the big...

Like whenever you sort of move from one area of a level to another. So it kind of acts like a life. And then it just doesn't have what we would think of as continues, which is strange. So maybe that is sort of just like a balance thing in terms of like. We made the game kind of easy. Pitfalls don't kill you. So, I don't know. I can't really hate it, but I also understand that our time is precious.

yeah i mean now that you mention it i hadn't even really realized that it is different than most the way that we see continues most of the time But I think that what I would have, what I would prefer in this situation is like, give me no lives where like, I don't ever get to start back at where I am, but give me unlimited continues where I have to start at the beginning of the level. Like that's my punishment. Restart the one level, but not go have to do all.

the things I've already completed again. Can you stop being so sensible? Sorry. So there is a TurboGrafx-16 version of this game as well, and I did... take the chance to play that one just to see, you know, like, all right, that is a 16-bit version of this same game. And they, you know, they are kind of like...

They're kind of the same version of the game in the sense like the stages and everything, but they're not laid out exactly the same. And graphics wise, there's like a slightly more realistic art style to everything while also still preserving that cartoon look. Does he look like Jackie Chan? He looks a little more like Jackie Chan. The face is much more Jackie. I'm not going to comment about the rest of the body because it's still kind of a cartoon. But like...

I guess I played the NES version first and was enjoying it. So going over to the TurboGrafx-16 one, I thought I was just going to get like a more polished experience. But... the fact that they changed the graphics like even in a way where it's like okay yeah it's 16-bit now like what's not to like i actually was like well i think i kind of liked how basic it was on the 8-bit and i was like am i just a really like secretly

an old man trapped inside a young dude's body where like i just all i always dig older video games but then i kept playing more of the game and because it's not exactly laid out like like it's not just a a port of the nes version they were developed alongside one another there was actually like things that they added that i was like well i don't know if we needed that you know like just even like

types of enemies and the way the enemies behave it was all like we we have the power to do this now so let's do it because we have the extra eight bits but it was like uh kind of made it more of a like It slogged down the pace of the game that was incredibly fast on the NES version. It's funny. I'm looking at a screenshot of the TurboGrafx version.

And it does look a lot more like Jackie Chan. But the rest of the game looks a lot more like Sonic the Hedgehog. Okay, yep. At least in a screen still. I cannot comment on what the game feels like and the speed of the game as you're describing. But just going off of the screenshot, I kind of like the vibe more. Well, you know, because if it's slow, then yeah, fuck it.

I wouldn't say it's slow, but even the structure of some of the levels in the NES when they were auto-scrolling parts of the level, that doesn't happen in this game. That's a completely different style. I don't know why they would change that.

Otherwise, for Jackie, there was a ton of video games on the MSX in Japan that were actually based on... movies he was in so jackie chan's action kung fu on the nes isn't based on any of his movies but they there's games like cannonball 2 project a spartan x the protector The Police Story, Project A2. These are all MSX games and they're all just like either like arcade games where it's just kind of like...

Mario Brothers but with Jackie Chan it's like hard to describe but like it's all on one screen I guess I mean in terms of the action and enemies just keep spawning in um all that stuff is just like and then here's like you know

But it's in the environment of the movie. So they call it the movie game. But none of these are full... plot like you know level to level action platformers like Jackie Chan's action kung fu is so all these games even though they come before them do feel a little more archaic than the first true Jackie Chan adventure game that we have here. And then I was looking for like other Jackie Chan stuff. And there was a like a fighting game with his name on it. Jackie Chan in Fists of Fire.

And that's one of those like going over the Mortal Kombat 2D digitization thing where it's like, you know, we're scanning the actual people. And so it looks like that. It's like, yeah, but does it... play like Mortal Kombat? And the answer is an obvious no. Then there was Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster on PlayStation 1. Either of you get a hold of this? I've seen this before. I think I've seen a Let's Play of it before. It's a little insulting how they make Jackie look.

on on ps1 with these polygons uh he could have done so much better they almost went for like the chibi look again but also committing to Like, but we should put his face on, on this character. I, that's the, that's why I remember this. Cause it's like, it looks like they mapped this face on a character and then put like, I think they're the let's player. I was talking about how it looks like it's like Jackie Chan's face with like.

a mesh sock over it so you can't really see it's like very blurry and very like oh like the max pain look yeah yeah exactly yeah it would be like if um but because of like the polygon count it would be like if cloud strife had like a photorealistic face on that body and like the face is like stretched over like a non-proportional

size like head love it and that one is a uh a 3d beat-em-up um but like i don't know it looked kind of people apparently do like it so i'm not gonna i did not play this one but it looked kind of empty uh, as do most, uh, like early PS one and 64 games. Cause what are you going to do? You know, what are you going to do?

Jackie Chan Adventures. Joe, you seem to know stuff about this. You want to talk about the cartoon? To be honest, I really don't. I never really watched it. I just remember being on before Pokemon or after Pokemon. I probably watched an episode here and there, but I was not. a big WB guy other than the Pokemon when I was a kid. I misled you. That's okay, because Jackie Chan Adventures, one thing it has going for it, just like our last episode, Dragon's Lair.

is that it got like, you know, okay, Jackie Chan Adventures on PlayStation 2. Let's do that whole like cell shaded animation thing. And it's like, I've already said it on that episode. I'll say it again. Best way to experience that generation of video games is like...

with that kind of graphic look. What did you guys think of Shanghai Noon? I remember liking it at the time. I remember loving the way that they escaped from jail. That's really all I remember about it. How did they escape from jail?

they like he like poured water on his t-shirt so it wouldn't rip and then he broke off the leg of a bench and like wrapped the t-shirt around two bars and then used the leg of the bench to like twist it and supposedly because it's not ripping and you're using a leverage you can kind of bend the bars in towards each other and then probably but I always thought it was cool I do remember that scene now Rush Hour 3 was a Java game

where you have the complete stunts for the movie. It looks really detailed. I interpreted that as Rush Hour 3, instead of being a movie, they released it as a Java game. Straight to... straight to VHS except straight to Java game. Rush Hour 3 was a pop-up ad you'd get in 2005 that you had to play and then it would steal your fucking identity.

That's a great idea, actually, Sean. You know how we talk about those games that aren't actually games, but they're ads, and then you download the app, and it's not that game? Someone should do that for a movie. It should be like the Avatar 3 game, but it's not that. It's just a trailer. trailer to the movie um avatar 3 is pretty it's pretty imminent at the time of this release of coming out so that's why i mentioned it

Unless they cancel every tax write-off. A $2 billion tax write-off. And then my last thing on Jackie Chan Games, because I just thought this was interesting, Shaolin versus Wu-Tang. There's two of these. They're fighting games made by some indie studio, and apparently they're terrible. But Jackie is in both. Bruce Lee's in them.

Just seems like something that's a bit of a missed opportunity because that is a cool thing to make into a fighting game. Didn't they make a Warriors fighting game too? There's just a Warriors video game. Okay, it's a video game, not a fighter. I mean, I think it's like a beat-em-up slash open world kind of... But it's by Rockstar, too, right? It's Rockstar. It's like a very good game, I've heard. Okay. I mean, that's cool. I guess I was thinking more like...

What they did for Rocky where there was like, there's no Rocky like recreate the events of the movie or anything, but there is like a, a Rocky like boxing game where you can play as all the boxers in like a fighting style game. That'd be interesting.

All right, but now we're going to find out if Jackie can pull one last stunt and land on the essential games list. Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu has... checked basically every box that I look for in not just NES games, but just in like what I enjoy about video games.

However, it's pretty simple. So does that discount it? What is the actual goal of the Essential Games list? I'm not here to decide that at this very moment. I'm going to... put a vote in the yes column for this one just in case that matters i can debate it later to me i had enough fun playing this game and it's such a

competently made game that it's such a welcome surprise amongst the kind of like garbage we've been playing since Mega Man 3 like Mega Man 3 for me felt more of like a clear essential vote than Jackie Chan where I'm like am I just like Have I just played so much bad stuff lately on the NES that this is just a welcome surprise? Maybe, but I'd rather get into that later. So it's a yes for me. Sean?

Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I haven't really said anything really negative about this game. However, I don't think I can put a second vote in. I really... Did have fun with it. I do think that it's got the user friendliness, but I think we have been kind of ruined by a lot of pretty bad stuff. And I'm not willing to trust to trust myself at this moment. I think that this is just like a really good play it that.

I don't know how much of a memory I'm going to have for this game going forward. So definitely play it. I don't know if I can vote as essential though. Joe.

Yeah, I've been going back and forth on this one before we started recording, and I think that for a while I was like, well, this is almost definitely essential. But then when I got to the... When I got to the... the realization that like oh I have to play this whole thing again and like that was almost kind of a just enough of a point for me to be like do I is does is that welcome to me is that type of gameplay welcome to me now today

And while no, it really isn't, I think that the rest of the game still stands out enough for me to throw it a vote right now. But I do... I do wonder if I come back to this game and it's kind of a forgotten game and maybe I'll be interested in looking and taking it off in the future. But for now, I really do feel like...

This game was really good, and even though there's that one flaw that kind of bugs me with it, I think I will remember this game. I do like the way it plays, and I haven't beaten it, but I'd like to, and I think that that... Uh, that alone is something that rarely happens where I want to continue playing a game after we're done with it for the episode. So, uh, yeah, I think, uh, I think it's enough for me to throw out a vote.

All right, we got there. It's Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu is the latest addition to the essential games list. I think one thing else to note about this is just... how surprising it is not even just like that it got on the list but like how surprising it was when I played it because sometimes you hear

oh, okay, it's a license thing, or it's like they just got the rights to this person, so now they're making a video game. We were joking about Al Unser Jr. earlier in the show. But it was surprising that it was so... well made and you know we've been struggling to say a lot of nice things about it because it's simple so it is tough to say it's like as polished as super mario brothers but i think it's like

as fun to play moment to moment as the original super mario brothers and that's kind of like a crazy thing to say out loud i never doubted the polish the polish is definitely there But my argument was more so that beyond the polish, I'm not sure how much is there. Right, I guess that's what I was saying, right? If your China cabinet is empty, how much do you have to polish anyway? Whoa.

And that is a great segue to next week's game because it takes place in China land. So they'll have to do a lot of polishing in order to get that one on the essential games list. And that is Little Ninja Brothers, which... Please be excited for. It's hard to describe because there's like three different genres going on in this game. Please clap. Yeah, please clap for Little Ninja Brothers. I can't think of the last time we had a back-to-back Essential Games list, so it does have...

A lot going up against it. Last back-to-back was Chippendale Rescue Rangers and then Dragon Spirit, the new legend. Do you ever go back to any of those, Sean? Every goddamn day, Mike. Hell yeah. You know what? If you like Chip, just wait till you get to Dale. He's got fireballs.