Kid Niki: Radical Ninja (Arcade)

Kid Niki is a Radical Ninja from the eighties. When he's not skateboarding in Cali or chowing down on a pineapple and ham pizza, he's busy grooving to the latest cuts from Queen and waging a war on drugs and inner-city gang violence.

Unused Graphics#

A word balloon in the same style as the ones used by the Round 6 boss. 手 translates as "Hand", though it could also be part of an indeterminate compound word.

Regional Differences#

Before coming to an overseas audience, Kid Niki underwent some serious radification.

Player#

Japan	International

The most notable and obvious change was done to the player character. Yanchamaru has a topknot and a relatively neat hairstyle compared to the gnarly mess that is Kid Niki's 'do.

Title Screen#

Japan	US	Europe (World)

The US and International title screens removes the power-up bell from the logo, plus the "2 COINS 2 PLAYERS" was shifted 1 tile upwards.

In the US title screen, Irem's copyright was replaced with Data East's, but still mentioning that the game was licensed from Irem. In the European title screen, Irem's copyright was shift one pixel to the right, making it centered.

High Scores and Plot#

Japan	International

The Japanese version has 8-character high score names, as well as a default set of names. The international versions has 3-character names and a high score table that's blank by default.

Japan	International

The game's totally tubular backstory is only present in the international game.

Round Intro#

Japan	International

The round intro in the Japanese version is very plain, only giving the name of the boss. The international versions add more text, the boss' sprite, and the current player.

Other Graphics#

Japan	International

The masked enemies have more distinct / less angry eyes in the international versions.

The humanoid bosses' exclamation of pain changed from "Ooh" to "Ouch!". The international graphic had to be expanded to make the text fit.

Sekkyou Oshou/Big Baldy's unique method of attacking had to be changed. Both the word balloon and voice clips were redone.

喝, pronounced 'katsu', is an exclamation used for scolding a practitioner of Zen. It doesn't really have a direct English translation, but regardless, it was dubbed into English (despite the graphic itself remaining the same).

The last of the Big Baldy changes. The text in the word balloon is only red in the Japanese version.

Other Text#

Round Clear#

This isn't very radical, but it is more coherent.

Final Round Clear#

The international text is no longer in the first-person.

Ending#

In addition to the increased radicalosity, the international ending's text is also formatted a whole lot better.

Other Changes#

• The international versions added mid-stage checkpoints, whereas the Japanese version forced you back to the beginning of the level upon death. The NES/Famicom port had the same mid-stage checkpoints in all regions.

References#