bensanaz for helping me do quite a bit of research.Mutekiken Kung-Fu
*****
Release Date: June 21, 1985
Notes: A take on Spartan X, widely considered the first true side-scrolling beat 'em up. This game even shares the Japanese release date of the Famicom version, which was released in the US as Kung Fu for NES or Kung-Fu Master for other systems and arcades.
This game's 2P VS mode is an homage to Yie Ar Kung Fu, a game considered one of the earliest versus fighters. The graphics are very obviously patterned after Karateka as it appeared for the Commodore 64, as are some of the gameplay mechanics.
The packaging goes to town parodying the idea of a non-Japanese, non-Famicom game made by weeaboo Westerners. The cartridge is shaped more like a C64 cart than the obvious Famicom shape. The manual and "cover art" really recall the packaging you saw in early Western computer stuff, especially Broderbund games.
*****
If you ever played a side-scrolling beat 'em up, you'll be quite familiar with the controls here. A punches, B kicks, and you jump by pressing the up button (which is weird). You can crouch by pressing down, which lets you perform massively cheesy crouching kicks and punches.
05: This one's really easy-- you've got to knock an enemy back from your character. You can just tap the punch button twice to get the desired effect. What actually causes the knockback seems to be attacking an enemy while it's locked up in hitstun. Doing this successfully causes a red flash to appear when you hit the enemy, instead of the usual yellow flash.
06: Beat the mid-boss of Stage 1, the dread Afro Karate Boxer. If you remember how cheap the low sweep kick was in most early martial arts games... well, that's how you win here.
07: Get the Mutekiken power-up, then kill multiple foes using your new super-launching attack abilities. To do this you have to collect four "ki marks," power-up orbs that enemies can drop after you beat them. The ki marks are only dropped if you kill an enemy by throwing another enemy into it with a combo string. You can use combos with the low sweep kick to achieve this very easily.
08: Beat the boss of Stage 2. (Arino doesn't aim high, even as a demon king.) Nothing special required here, just remember to crouch to avoid birds and that you usually need to jump a lot during boss fights.
Game: Demon Returns
Get 50 souls in one play. It's okay to die while gathering the souls, but if you get a game over you need to restart. You may be able to do this in World 1-1-- if not, you shouldn't have to play farther than World 1-2. You get souls by defeating enemies or breaking blocks with your claw sweep attack.