Karate Champ Sucks. Gradius Rules. The 1986 NES Lineup is Complete.
NES Catalog #035-036
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Karate Champ
PUBLISHER: Data East
DEVELOPER: Technos Japan (port by SAS Sakata)
RELEASE DATE: November 1986 (US)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Arcade, Apple II, Commodore 64, Famicom Disk System, iOS, PlayStation 2, Switch (via Arcade Archives), PlayStation 4 (via Arcade Archives)
So you enjoyed Karate Champ, the influential arcade title that helped usher in the one-on-one fighting game genre. Well, toss those cherished memories of fighting against friends out the window at full speed!
Karate Champ’s NES port is here to ruin your day and confound your soul.
You control White Player and you fight against Red Player. No names, just colors - but hey, if you’d like some names, how about Snow vs. Blood? Hitting Blood once will knock him down and accrue you a point (or half-point, depending on your move) from your sensei, but the match isn’t officially won until you’ve gotten two full points. Or if the timer runs out, whoever has the most points wins the match. Beat Blood in a variety of colorful settings, including a cliffside, an alleyway, and even the jungle, up to nine times before the game resets and your fighting journey begins anew.
If you want to learn Snow’s varied move set to rack up points, feel awesome, and still progress, you’re in for a hard road. The hit detection is terrible, and the controls often work against you. You can be facing Blood and theoretically punching/kicking where he’s standing, but the game won’t recognize your input. Simultaneously, you could suddenly face the wrong direction, away from Blood, unsure of what button input got you there. Then, before you can turn around, a kick in the back plummets you to the ground.
If you just want to see the unique locales that Karate Champ takes you to, by all means, kick Blood in the crotch as he approaches you and rack up those wins. Over and over again, until you’ve visited the world on your sensei’s dime. It’s cheap, but it works.
For full Karate Champ satisfaction, seek out an arcade cabinet (or a digital release on the Switch/PS4) and get your fighting fix there. This NES port was questionable in 1986, and it’s all but unplayable now.
D-
Straight From the Arcade
*images courtesy of Billy Hartong, Arcade Marquee, StrategyWiki and MobyGames
Other Versions
APPLE II
COMMODORE 64
*images courtesy of MobyGames
Gradius
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Konami
RELEASE DATE: April 25th, 1986 (JP), December 1986 (US), November 30th, 1988 (EU)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Arcade, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Game Boy, Mobile, MSX, Switch (via Arcade Archives), NEC PC88, PlayStation 4 (via Arcade Archives), TurboGrafx-16, Sharp (X1, X68000), Virtual Console (Wii, 3DS, Wii U), Nintendo Switch Online
Shoot-em-ups are designed to enrage, destroy, and rebuild you, in that order. They present the illusion of impossibility. They force the player to confront their inadequacies. You aren’t good enough to beat this level or that boss, not yet. But embrace the cold blackness of space, learn the intricacies of your arsenal, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll save the universe from complete destruction.
Gradius brings both an iconic Konami series and the horizontal shoot-em-up to the NES in fine fashion. You are Warp Rattler, a super advanced “hyper-space fighter” tasked with saving the peaceful Gradius planet from the Bacterions, amoebic jerks who hate peace and all who practice it.
The Warp Rattler is equipped with various abilities, all of which are unlocked by collecting red capsules. Extra speed, missiles that drop to the ground below, double shot to attack enemies from above, powerful lasers, options that provide additional firepower, and force field are all essential if you hope to survive. Every upgrade but the double shot and the laser can be used all at once, so you’ll have to discern, based on enemy placement and patterns, which of those weapons works best for each mission.
You’ll want to have as many upgrades as possible all the time, especially the force field which enables you to take additional hits. After a tame introductory mission, Gradius goes hard. Moai heads litter the stars and shoot untold amounts of rings at you. Bizarre brains with arms attached launch so many projectiles that the game slows to a crawl. Even with strong weapons, two options, and a force field, Bacterions put up incredible resistance.
The Warp Rattler will explode multiple times. You will become furious. Stick with it. Gradius calls you to grow in patience, strength, and skill. You’re not good enough yet, but you could be.
B-
Straight From the Arcade
Gradius was originally called Nemesis in arcades outside Japan.
*images courtesy of LaunchBox Games Database, PixelatedArcade, the Arcade Flyer Archive, and MobyGames
Other Versions
AMSTRAD CPC
MSX
SHARP X1
TURBOGRAFX-16
*all images courtesy of MobyGames
NEXT TIME: Issue #001 of the Nintendo is Great Newsletter will cover January 1987-March 1987, including looks at the Famicom Disk System, the Nintendo Fun Club Newsletter, and some hot “new” games like Trojan, Pro Wrestling, and Volleyball!
Karate Champ:
I know this game is bad, but I kind of like it. Maybe I would dislike it more if I'd played the arcade version. But as it stands, it's always worth a few minutes of fun with a friend. In fact, a friend owned it back in the day, and we played it a lot more than most of the other bad games you've reviewed. Including Ghosts and Goblins!
To this day -- and I've loaded up Karate Champ every few years, even played it a little with my kids -- I have no idea what causes a hit in this game to connect. But in the context of a 1v1 PvP competition, that randomness and awkwardness is also part of the fun! It means you can lose to a 5-year-old without going too, too easy, because the game chooses to ignore the fact you kicked him in the head 4 times in a row, and then his lone punch somehow knocks you out. Kind of like Mario Party in that way.
I would say the natural successor to Karate Champ, but good, is Bushido Blade. I'm not aware of anyone else ever adopting the point-based karate tournament concept for a game, which is kind of odd when you think about it, given how many fighting games we've had shoveled upon us over the years and the fact that karate tournaments are a real thing. Maybe some sort of Olympics game did this?
Gradius:
I've hardly played the original game, but I played a ton of Legend of the Mystical Ninja with my best friend, in which you could go to an arcade and play the first stage of Gradius. This absolutely blew our minds. For an early title it was one of those things that made the SNES seem truly "next-gen" to us, but nowadays, in a world with games like the Yakuza series where you can visit arcades and play all kinds of Sega games from start to finish, this seems like nothing at all.
Gradius is one of those classics I never got into, I normally just think of it as the original Konami code game.
Karate Champ is definitely a pioneer in the one on one fighting genre. Outside of the two joystick control scheme, which kind of fascinated me back then, it’s more of a historical curio these days.