Kabuki-Z

Kabuki-Z is an arcade game produced by Kaneko and licensed by Taito in 1988. It was the first 3d perspective beat 'em up (or hack 'n slash) truly by Kaneko. You play as a samurai in the first three rounds but bizarrely in the fourth round, you transform into a barbarian fighting against Medieval and Egyptian enemies.

Game Play
In the first three rounds, you play as a samurai with a katana. But in the last two rounds, for some reason you switch into a muscular barbarian with a shield and a sword instead. The game feels more like a 3D hack 'n slash rather than a brawler like DJ Boy. There's two buttons, an attack and block button. Pressing both at the same time will allow you to jump, and pressing the attack button while jumping let's you attack enemies. Speaking of enemies, all enemies in the stages can be killed by one hit while the bosses have health bars. The block button serves as avoiding damage from enemy attacks. During the boss battles, it switches from a typical hack 'n slash to a more of a fighting game. If a player outright blocks before the boss attacks, the boss is stunned that allows the player to drain the bosses health. The player only gets one life and the only way to continue is inserting more coins. To restore health, the player can always pick up items from defeated enemies or enemies that are blocking.

Release
Kabuki-Z was released for the arcades under the Taito label in late 1988. In the beginning of 1992, Kaneko announced a port under the title Tenkuu Restuden Musashi for the Mega Drive and was to be release sometime in Q4 1992. However, there wasn't any news of the port, most likely cancelled for unknown reasons.

Arcade

 * Japanese: 歌舞伎-Z (Kabuki - Z)
 * Korean: 가부키-Z (gabuki-Z)

Mega Drive

 * Japanese:

Trivia

 * According the Mega Drive fan, the Mega Drive version was 50% complete.
 * The Mega Drive port was on the same side of another unreleased game, Battle Smash.

Sub Pages

 * Kabuki-Z: Hidden Content
 * Kabuki-Z: List Of Enemies
 * Kabuki-Z: Staff