For many years I have always wanted to own Flynns Arcade from the movie Tron. Show me a kid my age who didn’t! Now I have one, of sorts, its been a very interesting ride even at this early stage. Take Kid Niki, Radical Ninja. iRem game from 1986. A colourful action platformer in the same vein as all other walk right and shoot games except this time you have a Sword and bar a couple of specials, that is it. he is less Ninja and more Samurai if we are honest!

I had issues getting this one to work. The GBS-C looked at it and choked, to date the only thing that its failed on mind! So I think to myself “lets try the flylink”. Now for those less nerdy a Flylink is a cheap (18 bucks) upscaler and RGBS adaptor that lets you plug in some old shit and play or stream on modern appliances via a magical cable conundrum and some poetry that is read whilst drinking the blood of someone elses first born… OK, maybe less of the blood but the rest is true!.

So I plug this thing in and… WTF, works great! Suddenly I can play Kid Niki and one more PCB is saved from the junk pile or ripped eproms and practice soldering. Brilliant. Then we come to the game, one I have never played, original Arcade or game port. Its different!

So I am rad, bad and ready to go save my Princess who no doubt will be in another castle! Fuck you Peach!

I can jump! I can spin my sword! OK, simple controls, this is a good thing. Oh dear, bit boring. Oooh! BOSS! Dead… Fuck you BOSS! Few more credits in and… OK I like this game. Yeah it is simple with its seven levels plus boss then end (only made boss two so far) but its subtle in its perfection and plays quite hard even on normal. This could well end up as one of the games I really, REALLY enjoy. It is certainly going to be a fun test of my skills as I blame the joystick for everything!

I really do love the graphics. They won’t break any records but they are bright and colourful and thats all I need in a game of this ilk. I am a kid Ninja stabbing badly animated characters, we do not need layers of animations for this we just need fast and fun and this seems to have both. It also has music! I mean, I have a tolerance for this simple game music that many do not (nobody in my test stream enjoyed it and many screamed in pain…) but it felt perfect for the games style and age.It is an old Arcade PCB board, its in mono FFS. Nobody expect opera in mono, do they?

So, anyone else played this? Seems it was also on Famicom and later ported to inferior systems. Was it good? Whilst you are hopefully commenting I am off to practice for that 1cc high score. I have quite a way to go.