ケルナグール (kerunagūru)

I've been playing old Famicom games lately and I thought I'd share this one.

In kerunagūru, you are a martial artist whose ancestors were great fighters and you go off on a quest to become a great warrior to live up to your family's name.

Theres an overworld you have to explore to defeat 8 or so "champions." Along the way, you have to look for power ups and learn special techniques from temples and hermits (not technically necessary but is required for the "true ending," and it's also brutally hard without the upgrades).

The fighting is intersting. All you have to do is move left and right, punch, crouch, and jump. All the different techniques will be chosen automatically depending on your position (as in whether you're just standin, crouching, or jumping) and the distance between you and the opponent.

I beat the game but it would have been IMPOSSIBLE without a guide because the clues for the upgrades, if there even is any, are super cryptic. Even though I felt like I was just following a tutorial, the fourth wall breaking jokes and references, as well as the fight system made the whole experience really fun.

Also, it's been my lifelong goal to beat this game.

I immigrated to Canada when I was a kid, and one of the few toys I got to bring with me was my Famicom. Before we left, my grandma bought me a few games so I can play it after I moved, but for whatever reason, my Famicom never worked overseas. We used a transformer and everything so I don't think we fried the circuit or anything. I was super bummed.

Now I'm 42, live in Japan again, and have some money to spare, so I bought myself a Retrofreak and this game to do my grandma proud!

Btw, I nearly went into a ragefit when I found out this obscure ass game was one of the few games that were NOT compatible with the Retrofreak. I had to basically jailbreak the thing to get it to work properly.