#136 International Karate +

Posted: 29th December 2013 by Jeroen in Games
Tags: , , ,

296th played so far

Genre: Fighting
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1987
Developer: System 3
Publisher: System 3

Fighting game, fairly old, something karate with some control improvements according to the book. Sorry, near-300 exhaustion is setting in and there are only so many things we can introduce these with.

Probably the main innovation mentioned here is the introduction of a third fighter – apparently one of the first fighters to do so – changing the dynamics of the game.

Our Thoughts

Playing this game, it’s fairly obvious why these sort of arena-based fighters (for lack of a better term – fighters where it’s about two equal opponents facing each other, rather than you fighting off a rush of enemies) haven’t really featured three combatants in a round. First, there’s the inherent (seeming) imbalance where two gang up on one – something that seems likely. Second is the simple chaos of it. It can be hard enough to keep track of one character and balance your moves and combos against them, having to worry about more can be even worse.

The game is confusing in other ways as well. Because of its platform constraints, the only control used is the joystick (or similar) – attacks are made by going up and down together with a direction. It is as awkward as it sounds.

It makes for some pretty chaotic and uncontrolled fights, where it felt like any damage we dealt was down to luck more than skill. There’s probably some pattern to it, but it was difficult enough to find out, let alone get further in winning.

The main attraction (I suppose) are the animations. Sure, nothing too special now, but with a number of them being based on recordings of actual fighters (apparently at least some were from a Grease background dancer), they seem fluid and natural.

To me the main attraction was the button that made all their trousers fall down and gave them a shocked/embarrassed look on their faces. It’s the small Easter eggs that makes life worth while.

Final Thoughts

As appealing as the graphics are (comparatively), the game feels chaotic, thanks to the extra fighter, and difficult to control. It makes for an interesting data point in the evolution of the genre, but for me it’s not sharp enough to really enjoy.