Kung Fu House review: a good game translated by a potato

Kung Fu House by Thai developer Siam Game has been lighting up the app charts across Asia and has finally gotten an English version—kind of.

erm….wait….what?

Kung Fu House is a familiar character collect-a-thon like Summon Masters. Players must collect and improve a party of kung fu heroes and save something from someone. It sounds vague, but there’s a reason for that:

What the hell is going on?

The first thing you are going to notice about Kung Fu House is the rather unique translation. Nothing translates well in this game and nothing has been localised for a non-Chinese audience. This means if you don’t have a rough knowledge of Chinese sayings and jokes, most of this game is going to fly over your head. In fact, even if you do have a rough idea, the majority of the game will still fly over your head.

Relationship advice pre-battle?

The game seems unaware of its awful translation, and during the text moves too fast to decipher in pre-scripted dialogues. In short, I only know that there is something called “Evil Religion” which is headed by a female antagonist whom I need to find. I don’t know anything about this religion or why it’s evil, so I’m hoping that the ending reveals a cultural misunderstanding.

Suffice to say, I had no idea of what was going on in Kung Fu House, and I doubt any of you will either. Luckily, that’s not important.

You know how this works

If you played Summon Masters or other character collection games then you know how it works. You fight computer-controlled enemies or other players for money and experience. These commodities allow you to level up, buy equipment, and find items.

There’s loads of goodies to discover.

You can also find souls, which you can then trade for more powerful heroes. This sounds a little Faustian and seems out of place in Kung Fu House’s cute universe, but whatever, it works.