Taito's 1985 Arcade Action Game The Legend Of Kage Is Now Available On Switch

I may be the only person who was actually looking forward to this.

The NES version gets treated as a joke, but the Arcade version is pretty nice, IMO.

I have a soft spot for The Legend of Kage, but i think Hamster should release more Arcade Games from the mid 90s that aren't Neo Geo related. Almost all Games they release are from the 80s and more variety would be nice.

I'd personally like to see more golden age releases like Time Tunnel was. Not nearly enough pre 1984 arcade games in this program.

@Nagi Not too realistic, alas. Emulation would be so complex that they'd have to resort to porting games, just like how the more modern games in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 that got offshored to China were handled years ago.

We'd be lucky to see 4-5 games a year and they'd be limited to just candidates with surviving source code.

I have heard this name several times through the years, but all I find on the internet is NES version's reviews. Does anybody here know the arcade game? And what about it? Is it any good? And between this one and Ninja Spirit?

I beat it on the NES, but I wouldnt play it anymore. It was a stupid game even back then.

Would love to Rastan. Taito, I think. Same with Cadash.

I never got the popularity of this game. Then again I've only played the Nes version and it sucks.

I noticed this game when I was browsing around the eshop. I never got into this game. I wish Hamster would pick up more games from the 90’s.

@Atariboy i would love to see those midway classic arcade games though!!! Sorely missing from the Switch retro library!! 😊

I will pick this up more Taito games please like Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderbolt, Rainbow Islands, Rastan, Qix and Space Dungeon just to name a few!!

Come on Taito, give us Operation Wolf / Thunderbolt, Chase HQ, SCI, Rainbow Islands,

I have bit of an affinity for this game (Or the NES version anyway) since it was one of the 20 or so games included in one of the crusty 50 games in 1 game systems I had as a kid, a system called Megajoy and orange colored N64 controller shaped thing you plug into the TV.

Maybe if this was just a little cheaper I would give it a shot for nostalgia's sake.

The NES game had like three levels that you could beat in five minutes. The character could jump like hundreds of feet in the air. But it was fun anyway.

Never played the arcade version, I wonder what, besides the visuals, is different.

This is one of my favorite nes games!

I owned this on NES back in the day & beat it. It was tough for a while but once I got good at it, I was able to beat it repeatedly. I didn't know there was an arcade version.

This is a game I've always wanted to play even though I've had chances to play it. I may go ahead and get this finally on Switch since it is the arcade version. I don't know how long this series will go but I need them to keep digging in the deepest vaults for all of those unknown, lesser-known, and forgotten arcade games throughout the 80s.

The second one on the DS is better.

Am i confused or did a reeally huge game by the name of Overwatch release on the system yesterday?

@Moroboshi876 the arcade game was on one of the Taito Legends releases. I played it a little. It was pretty fun the way it felt to play for its time period, but the design was a bit basic, so it lacked staying power for me. When I first played Ninja Spirit, it was clear to me that it was designed to be similar in feel to this one, but Ninja Spirit has more focused and traditional level design. I think that's more appealing. If you're going with only one, I'd go Ninja Spirit. Check out a long-play video of Kage if you have more interest to get a better idea of what it's about, if you haven't already.

@Gerald I'd love to have the arcade version of Chase HQ, I've only ever played it on the old Speccy and it was crap. I took on a paper round to pay for it too as it was a 10 quid cardboard box game. A penny a paper I got paid haha

Have Chase HQ on my arcade setup and the sequel Special criminal investigation both top games, these are arcade classics that deserve the Switch treatment.

Fair enough, but I'm waiting for TAITO's evergreens, i.e. Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, New Zealand Story, Rastan Saga and Bonze Adventure.
I'd love for Hamster to also license the best TAITO/Toaplan shooters, such as Flying Shark, Twin Cobra and Truxton

@Moroboshi876 I know Ninja Spirit is considered a very good game.
Strange that it got a Game Boy port which even more strangely got an apparent official China/Hong Kong release but not a western release.
And the game is unsurprisingly an expensive game. (well, that is the Japanese game. Chinese release not even to be seen on ebay, which isn't surprising since the legit CH releases are all crazy rare.)

@OorWullie wow, a penny a paper. I never had a paper round, it was something like £5 a week from what I remember
Wasn’t the Speccy version of Chase HQ a good port at the time? I had it on the Amstrad CPC on disc. I couldn’t believe it when at the start the game actually said “Let’s go Mr Driver” A game with speech at that time on an 8 Bit home computer was impressive, Ocean Arcade ports were very good

@sleepinglion Cadash was a lot of fun!