"Long ago in an ancient and magical oriental land..." the blurb begins, and few hardened gamesters will need to know any more. Yes, it's Ninja time again, with all the usual righting of wrongs, rescuing fair maidens and smashing people round the head with long wooden poles.
    Good clean fun, of course, but where's the novelty? After grinding away at this for an hour, you find yourself wondering whether there really is room for yet another game set in the mystic east. What has Legend Of Kage got that the other 6,211 haven't?
    As Kage it's your task to rescue the luscious Princess Kiri (daughter of King Appletise?) from the evil Dragon King. To do this you leap around a forest with astonishing agility seeing off a load of mostly inept warriors in black robes. Once past them you face the Dragon King himself, a remarkable character who clearly holds the world high jump record as well as being extremely evil. Further screens take you into his castle but little changes.
    The most you can really say of Legend Of Kage is that, mercifully, no-one gets kicked in the goolies. Instead Kage wanders about with what looks like a pole but I'm assured is a very large sword. Even so, in every other respect Imagine's latest arcade conversion is just too similar to the standard ninja-puts-the-boot-in game, especially in feel. As such it's likely to be of interest only to fans of the of original and the most dedicated orientalists.

Arcade version screenshot...

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Ratings given by other magazines

5/10      3/10    Crash Review ---

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