Gekido: Kintaro's Revenge can be seen as two things: 1.) It's either the classiest beat'em up in years complete with a interesting art style and story... 2.)or a reminder why this 2D genre slowly died out in the mid-90s.
Gekido has many things going for it - the hand-drawn characters look excellent from your fighter to the many enemies you face. There are a nice assortment of Streets of Rage-type moves and the game even includes some quality platforming elements to break up all the flying fists.
However, the game feels unfinished. Much like the PlayStation original version of Gekido (which was made by just two people), the game seems to take short cuts with a limited number of animations and level variety. Enemies are repeated heavily with the infamous changing of the color scheme the only thing changing them. Did you enjoy that rolling log you had to jump over in level one? Good, you'll see it lots more times over the next few levels.
Sound is average for the system, with the typical muted screams, crashes and bashes you've heard in other handheld figthers.
Did you like using the environment and weapons in the PlayStation version? Like having the ability to choose from four different characters? You get none of that here. Just the one main guy.
The game's length is about on par with most beat'em ups out there, but it features a decent level of challenge - so you'll get your dollar's worth.
Despite these complaints, Gekido: KR feels like a more-up-to-date beat'em up for the GBA than recent re-released ports of games such as Final Fight One and movie licensed games such as the X-Men.
A respectable, if not rough around the edges, game to add to your library.
NOTE: This game is an import which works fine on the U.S. GBA or GBA SP.
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