Kabuki Z is a 1988 side-scrolling arcade game made by Kaneko and published by Taito. It's also one of the few Taito games at the time which is NOT a sci-fi themed space shooter, but a Hack and Slash-style actioner.
Using a setting and gameplay format inspired by Genpei Tōma Den, you're a heroic, katana-wielding samurai in a version of Feudal Japan overrun with the undead. And you will fight your way through skeletons, cutists, and assorted demons before confronting the dreaded Ashura.
Kabuki Z contain examples of:
- Battle Amongst the Flames: In the second stage, when you're fighting enemies inside a burning building. Occasionally falling embers from the ceiling will drop and damage you on contact, though oddly enough already-existing fires on the floor won't hurt you in any way.
- Black Knight: You fight a knight clad in Western armor after battling through the chessboard. Said knight originally assumes the form of a portrait before coming to life.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The game have a noticeably higher amount of gorn when it comes to onscreen kills (compared to Genpei Tōma Den or similar titles), with enemies exploding into puddles of blood even though they're hacked by a sword. And then there are the bosses, who lose their heads, get their flesh ripped off leading behind a skeleton in a blood puddle, or for Ashura, literally turning into a pool of red sauce.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: The game's second-to-last boss is a huge, burly brute wielding a warhammer as weapon.
- Chest Burster: An example that somehow doesn't involve some chestburster knockoff or monster; after you defeat the Dragon Warrior, he then collapses... and two young kunoichi warriors suddenly bursts from his back (???). You then fight the two as a Dual Boss.
- Conspicuously Light Patch: In the underground crypt, the floors is filled with bones and skulls, most which are perfectly blended with the background, but some are still pale white and suspiciously sticks out. As you fight the undead warrior who starts summoning a set of skeletal armor for himself, sure enough, the outstanding bones are the ones that revive.
- Dem Bones: Skeletons dressed like soldiers from Feudal Japan are recurring enemies. Like most other games of it's type they're pathetic and dies in a single hit.
- Flying Face: You fight some Ubagabi enemies late into the game.
- Human Chess: After defeating the kunoichi, you're magically transported to a stage resembling a giant chessboard (oddly enough, based on English chess despite the Feudal Japanese setting). Where the pieces are alive and attacks you while moving in a manner reminiscent of actual chess moves (e.g. bishops slides diagonally, rooks comes at you in a straight line, knights moves on their elevation before moving one step upwards or downwards to ambush you).
- Jousting Lance: The Black Knight boss carries a massive lance, longer than you are tall, as his weapon.
- Living Drawing: One of the bosses appears as a life-sized portrait of a Western knight. And then it suddenly comes to life and jumps out at you.
- Mirror Match: Most of the bosses, like the Kabuki fighter, undead samurai, and undead warrior in the crypt are human-sized, and attacks with melee weapons not unlike your katana. The warrior notably have animations just like yours and can jump as well in his first phase (until he summons a set of skeleton armor on himself).
- Monstrous Scenery: The background of the stage where you fought the Dragon Warrior has an actual dragon, wide awake, watching the fight. But it doesn't do anything and ignores you all the way.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Final Boss, Ashura, has four arms, each wielding a weapon, and puts up one heck of a fight.
- Nothing but Skulls: The underground crypt's floors is literally carpeted with bones and skulls, all over the place. With some extra skeletons and corpses hanging around in the background.
- Off with His Head!: You do this to enemies on a regular basis. Heck, it's even on the title screen (see Seppuku).
- One-Hit Kill: Most of the non-boss enemies, who implodes into a bloody puddle after getting a soft graze from your sword. It's pretty absurd.
- Samurai: One of the bosses is an undead samurai.
- Seppuku: The game's introduction features a monk committing hara-kiri. Followed by your character relieving him of the head. Then comes the title screen.
- Sinister Scythe: The first boss is a kabuki-clad dancer who attacks Dual Wielding kusarigamas. There's lesser mooks using similar weapons on you as well.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: The undead warrior, upon defeat, summons a set of skeleton (belonging to some unidentified, long-tailed creature) and magically made the ribcage curl around himself as his personal armour.
- Stripped to the Bone: The Undead Warrior, upon defeat, quickly dissolves into a skeleton.
- Technicolor Blade: The Undead Warrior wields a sword that glows red, while Ashura wields four blades in his four arms, two which are red and two yellow. On occasion your blade can glow red as well, especially when you suffer too much health damage.
- Trivial Title: The game has almost zilch to do with Kabuki Theatre, despite the name, with most of it being a rather standard side-scrolling arcade game where you simply hack up mooks in a Feudal Japanese setting. The first boss is dressed like a Kabuki dancer, but he's defeated rather easily and doesn't have any impact on the rest of the game.
- Weird Moon: Even weirder than usual, actually. Stage 3 has what at first appears to be an usually large moon rising in the sky, but if you look closely you'll see the moon is somehow right there in the near background, just sitting in an open field.
