Casino Kid ・ 100万＄キッド 幻の帝王編
Developed by: Sofel
Published by: Sofel
Release date: October 1989 (NA), January 6, 1989 (JP)
The Japanese version of Casino Kid was based off a manga series: 1987’s $1,000,000 Kid. The titular kid is Hiroshi, a 14 year old with a heavy gambling addition (seriously), who inherits a million bucks from his dad as a test: spend the money wisely, and he’ll inherit the lucrative family business.
Like a true addict, grabby hands and drooling mouth and all, Hiroshi scoops up the money and booms off to Las Vegas to fritter his newfound riches away. And the American gambling institutions never once call into question why some kid whose voice is still cracking is raking in millions of dollars on their turf. There’s suspending your disbelief, and then there’s whatever that’s supposed to be.
The $1,000,000 Kid characters didn’t stick when Casino Kid came to North America, but that manga influence brings a lot of flair to a genre that desperately needs a shot of visual stimulation. As the Casino Kid himself, your goal is to turn $500 into two million dollars. Why? I think they mentioned something about a gambling tournament at the start, but who cares. You square up against various casino employees/enthusiasts who’ll try to best you at blackjack and poker and no other games, which makes this a pretty piss poor casino. The Japanese version had a roulette game that was cut, however (this will be important later, remember this). Anyway, once you clean out one NPC of their money, you can move onto the next one, and so on, until you hit that $2,000,000 goal.
Something that makes Casino Kid unique is that you actually wander around the casino to find opponents, RPG style. Sadly, it’s not as interesting as it sounds. There are characters dotted around the map who’ll reveal intel about the opponents you play poker against, and a few girls dressed like Playboy bunnies who say things like “Tee hee!” and “I’ll give you a kiss!” There’s also characters dotted around that you can’t talk to – their jaundiced skin being a tell-tale sign to stay away. One can only assume these are hardcore gambling junkies who haven’t moved from their machines in days, convinced that if they keep drip feeding their machine quarters it’ll blow its load and spill that jackpot any moment now. If a 14 year old can run amok in Vegas, there can be zombies too.
The meat and potatoes of Casino Kid is, of course, the casino games. So how are they? Blackjack is boring here. The CPU is a dirty cheat who’ll pull multiple 21s in a row on your ass, and it’s not the best card game to base 50% of a Nintendo game off of in terms of depth or scope. I kinda get a kick out of poker, since it actually requires a bit of critical thinking and strategy. Casino Kid actually lets you study the face of your opponent, which is a cute touch. No complaints there. But both poker and blackjack are paced terribly. Cards move around the screen at a leisurely pace when they’re doled out, which draws these games out to be what we in the business call “way too friggin’ slow.” Between the cheap computer and the geriatric doling out of cards, you’re gonna be here awhile if you plan on playing this game to completion.
Once you finally earn $2 million bucks, you’ll face off against the final boss: a horrific snarling beast. Its monstrous maw drips with drool as it rears its ugly head to destroy you, a stark parallel to the Casino Kid’s boundless greed. The creature is a harrowing, if not heavy handed representation of the very concept of a gambling addiction. This otherwise mediocre game is redeemed by how impactful and striking the final fight is.
So obviously that’s some BS I just made up. The real final boss is some idiot called the Casino King. He wears a bag over his head. He’s never seen before or after this fight. The fight is cards. Then it’s over.
And that’s Casino Kid. Once you strip away the attractive bells and whistles of the character art and a little overworld to explore, it’s a bog standard gambling sim with no variety in its very slow card games. Which, need I remind you, are run by a pack of dirty cheating NPCs. There’s a lot that makes this game unique, but sadly, it’s not greater than the sum of its parts. It’s only worth your time if you really, really like the idea of 8-bit poker, since Casino Kid and its sequel are some of the only NES games that let you play it.
Final score:
Speaking of the sequel…
Casino Kid 2
Developed by: Sofel
Published by: Sofel
Release date: April 1993 (NA)
The $1,000,000 Kid manga series ran for 79 weekly chapters, drawing to a close in 1988. I have no idea how it ends, but I’m assuming Hiroshi made a gatrillion dollars, became a gambling legend, took over his dad’s business, and married some generic anime girl. As all good stories are wont to do.
Five years after the comic ended and four years after the Casino Kid game released, Sofel made a sequel: Casino Kid 2. This is one of those rare instances where a Japanese developed NES game ended up being a North American exclusive. It’s also one of those cartridges that’s gone on to be expensive in collector’s markets, since it released near the end of the NES’s lifespan. Is it worth the clams? Let’s find out…
From the jump, CK2 deals with navigating its opponents and worlds a little differently from the first; no more RPG overworld here. Instead, there’s this world map, with your opponents representing their home countries. It’s almost as if you’re a warrior, and you’re, like, travelling the world to fight them, and goddamn I’ll just come out and say it’s knocking off Street Fighter II pretty blatantly. The Japanese guy is named Ryu, and there’s even a Chun Li bootleg in the mix. But there’s no tiger uppercuts or spinning bird kicks to be found in Casino Kid II: The World Warrior. Just more cards.
Oh yes, more cards. Joy of joys. Remember the roulette wheel that didn’t make the cut from Casino Kid? It’s been added back into Casino Kid 2, but holy hell is it ever miserable. I can see why they opted to take it out of the first one. The opponents give a little hint as to what the ball might land on, but otherwise, there’s no meaningful input needed from the player. The only thing worse than video game roulette is video game slot machines, which are mercifully not in this game. Aside from that, the bulk of CK2 is still the same old blackjack and poker from the first one.
And that’s not hyperbole. Blackjack and poker are literally the exact same as the first game. All of the character dialogue is copied word for word from Casino Kid, the menu layouts are the same, and the godawfully slow way the cards move across the screen is unchanged. They likely recycled the source code wholesale, spruced it up with nicer graphics, and called it a day. Not that I don’t understand – there’s only so much you can do with cards. But they had four years to improve on this formula, make a more interesting overworld…anything besides subbing in some garbage roulette wheels. If nothing else, they had four years to speed up those GODDAMN CARD ANIMATIONS AND THEY DIDN’T AAAAARGHGHGHGH
If not for the shiny 1993 coat of paint, Casino Kid 2 would be a near carbon copy of the first Casino Kid. Somehow, it manages to be less interesting and mildly worse than its predecessor. I genuinely wanted to enjoy both of these games. How many gambling sims can you think of that parody Street Fighter, or have you traversing an RPG overworld? They sound so charming on paper! But in practice, playing them to completion is as tedious as it gets. The only worthwhile thing here is poker, and there are surely better ways to experience video game poker nowadays than the double trouble of mediocrity here. You can play poker, roulette, blackjack, mahjong, and a whole 40 hour RPG-lite brawling adventure in the Yakuza games, for instance. Did Casino Kid walk so Yakuza could run? Somehow I doubt it.
Final score:
P.S. Now that I’ve finished every officially released gambling game on the North American NES, I feel qualified to tell you that the only one worth playing is Vegas Dream. The rest of them range from dull to dreadful.
NESJunk 