How to play Kabuki-Z on Mac

Game summary

In the 80s, Taito produced a lot of popular coin-ops – mostly shoot-em-ups, puzzle and platform games. However, their beat-em-ups were not among their best. Kabuki Z is one of them. Developed by Kaneko of Gals Panic fame/infamy, it can best be described as a “hack-n-slash”. The intro sequence gives a good idea of the game’s content: a man commits seppuku, and behind him our samurai hero with his katana. The samurai chops his head off while the rice paper doors close, the resulting blood spurt splashing over them and forming the “Z” in the “Kabuki Z” title. Charming.
First released: Dec 1988

Play Kabuki-Z on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Kabuki-Z on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Kabuki-Z installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Kabuki-Z like you would on any PC.
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