The Last Official Release: Supervison - Kung-Fu Street/Classic Casino

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Hello, my retro gaming pals, and welcome back to The Last Official Release. It’s been several months since an entry in this series, but if you’re new around here or you’ve simply forgotten (and that’s okay) here I explore the very last games to be released for your favourite consoles. Last time, I covered the Game Boy Color, and the several dozen others I’ve researched can be found below – but today, we’re checking out something a bit more obscure. Yes, I’m running out of consoles.

The Nintendo Game Boy was a humongous success, and while plenty will be aware of not-so-humongous rivals such as the Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx, some of your may not be familiar with the Watara Supervision. “The What-ara?” You may confusingly, but jokingly ask – but fear not, read the next paragraph!

Originating in Taiwan, Watara aimed to manufacture a low-cost, but cartridge-based monochrome handheld to take on the Japanese giant. Released in 1992 as the Supervision (but known as many other names around the globe) it was sold at a cut-rate cost of only $50, compared to $80 for the Game Boy. It lived a limited life, however, disappearing into the ether only a year later.

The price was good (and surely led to many disappointing Christmas mornings) but the unit suffered from a poor screen that was susceptible to blurring. The biggest problem by far, however, were the games. Most were considered too simplistic compared to what could be played on rival handhelds by the big three at the time, which was another issue since the system had a distinct lack of recognisable franchises. Most of the developers were small studios that hailed from either Taiwan or Hong Kong.

Approximately 66 games are known about and the majority of their copyrights are dated to 1992. You might feverously be asking, however, what was indeed the last game? That’s what this article is all about, after all. Well, I don’t know. Sorry – there’s not a lot of information out there. But, both Classic Casino and Kung-Fu Street rep copyrights of 1993 (and no others as far as I can tell) so we’ll just go with both for the purpose of these words.

Classic Casino is somewhat common (for a Supervision game, anyway) since it was the second pack-in game supplied with the system. It replaced a game called Cystball, that was a Breakout clone. Developed by the Bon Treasure Co (who released quite a few games for the system) it’s a classic casino-type game. All in the name, really. There are three casino favourites you can play that include (and is limited to) Blackjack, Poker and Slots. As you can image, the goal is to earn more than you started with – but be warned, the house always wins. That’s sound advice for the real world, by the way.

Also in 1993, a little bit of the world was introduced to Kung-Fu Street, developed by Thin Chen Enterprise. You may know them by their other name, Sachen, who were notorious for releasing many unlicensed Nintendo games during the nineties. While Kung-Fu Street being based on a street is questionable (the backgrounds are simply blank) the goal is to fight opponents one on one until death. Not a whole lot here to tell, but it’s usually compared to (and likely a rip-off of) Yie Ar Kung-Fu by Konami on the NES.