Karateka

"Returning home after years of study under a Master of Karate, you find your village burned to the ground. Your friends and family are scattered, your bride-to-be stolen by Akuma, the warlord whose oppressive shadow has darkened your village since before you were born. Your grief and rage turn to cold determination. You vow never again to submit to the evil warlord. You know you must avenge your village and rescue your beloved Princess Mariko from Akuma's mountain fortress. Alone, armed only with your knowledge of Karate, you must out- fight Akuma's vicious warriors, each one more powerful than the last. Fight on, deep into the heart of the palace, where to rescue Mariko you must con- front the cruel Akuma himself in hand-to-hand combat. Put fear and self-concern behind you. Focus your will on your objective, accepting death as a possibility, and do what you have chosen to do. This is the Way of the Karateka."

Before Prince of Persia there was Karateka. An innovative title at the time with rotoscoped gfx and movie like presentation. The game plays like a side scrolling beat em up in that you just keep moving right and fighting everyone in your way to the end. The game is set in Japan with Karate as the fighting style.

The game runs quite slowly. There is a huge amount of lag between your inputs and the actions onscreen and once a move plays you are committed to it until it finishes. I guess the original intent was for you as the player to react to what the opponent is dong but its quite difficult to do that especially with joystick controls with quick button presses activating a punch and long presses activating kicks.. I went with button mash tactic in the hope the enemy gets confused and cant react. It's messy but gets the job done.

You get a limited amount of energy and lose it when taking a hit however it will build back up again when not taking hits and it works the same way for the enemy's too. Take too many hits and its game over. You can also be punched out instantly if you run into an enemy. Another way to die is being crushed by the spiked gate and walking to the princess at the end which I show at the end of the video.