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.
Even bad NES games can have an unusual nostalgic charm, so I don’t blame people when they say, “I know this is bad, but…”
I’m a fan of Silver Surfer on the NES and I know it’s way too tough for what it is, but meh, I like it!
Wow, didn’t know that about Mystical Ninja, that’s cool! I remember thinking it was crazy that Super Mario Bros. 3 had an updated Mario Bros. baked within its code!
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.
I never got into it until much later in life, and by then, I had already played Life Force, the superior Konami NES shooter. But for its day, Gradius was great.
Yeah these days, Karate Champ just gets lumped in with the handful of pre-SF2 fighting games. Not sure if that's right, but it is what it is...
I haven't seen this movie either, but you got me interested.
>All I know is that it’s hilarious that a swanky Hong Kong hotel like the one they stay at in the movie has a Karate Champ arcade cabinet.
I keep coming back to this semi-forgotten point of how common arcade cabinets were in the late 1980s/early 1990s, occasionally captured in movies from the era (famously, Back to the Future Part II). Wal-Marts, restaurants, grocery stores. I distinctly remember playing Capcom's "Magic Sword" at Dairy Queen on multiple occasions.
I still sort of doubt you would find one in a swanky hotel lobby in those days, but it wasn't THAT comically absurd compared to now. Surely you could easily find one in the lobby of many perfectly average hotels.
Very valid complaint, ESPECIALLY when combined with what we might call the standard Konami SHMUP upgrade package, which I think is the longest set of upgrades of any SHMUP I’ve ever played.
“Hey, you know that part that killed you when you had 2 options, ripple gun, up and down missiles, your optimal speed setting, and a front force field? Let’s see if you can beat it now with none of that.”
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.
Even bad NES games can have an unusual nostalgic charm, so I don’t blame people when they say, “I know this is bad, but…”
I’m a fan of Silver Surfer on the NES and I know it’s way too tough for what it is, but meh, I like it!
Wow, didn’t know that about Mystical Ninja, that’s cool! I remember thinking it was crazy that Super Mario Bros. 3 had an updated Mario Bros. baked within its code!
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.
I never got into it until much later in life, and by then, I had already played Life Force, the superior Konami NES shooter. But for its day, Gradius was great.
Yeah these days, Karate Champ just gets lumped in with the handful of pre-SF2 fighting games. Not sure if that's right, but it is what it is...
I see Gradius and I like, it's that simple. Phenomenal, simple fun with a high difficulty ceiling, I play it on the NES regularly.
When you die, do you restart from the beginning of the game or do you keep going sans upgrades?
Never seen Bloodsport, but that clip is incredible. How indeed are they doing this?!
Wow, all these things I did not know! Thank you, Alex!
I haven't seen this movie either, but you got me interested.
>All I know is that it’s hilarious that a swanky Hong Kong hotel like the one they stay at in the movie has a Karate Champ arcade cabinet.
I keep coming back to this semi-forgotten point of how common arcade cabinets were in the late 1980s/early 1990s, occasionally captured in movies from the era (famously, Back to the Future Part II). Wal-Marts, restaurants, grocery stores. I distinctly remember playing Capcom's "Magic Sword" at Dairy Queen on multiple occasions.
I still sort of doubt you would find one in a swanky hotel lobby in those days, but it wasn't THAT comically absurd compared to now. Surely you could easily find one in the lobby of many perfectly average hotels.
Very valid complaint, ESPECIALLY when combined with what we might call the standard Konami SHMUP upgrade package, which I think is the longest set of upgrades of any SHMUP I’ve ever played.
“Hey, you know that part that killed you when you had 2 options, ripple gun, up and down missiles, your optimal speed setting, and a front force field? Let’s see if you can beat it now with none of that.”
Yeah, I should have mentioned this point in the review. Gradius' difficulty sans upgrades is... not fun. But I suppose it turns boys into men etc etc