Karateka

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Written on an Apple II by Jordan Mechner in his Yale University dorm room, Karateka became a bestseller and affected a generation of gamers with its groundbreaking animation and cinematic cut-scenes.
Evil Akuma kidnaps and holds the lovely Princess Mariko. You must defeat the guards of the castle as well as Akuma's eagle and eventually face Akuma himself in order to rescue the princess. The game's perspective of the two combatants is based on the typical 2D arcade fighting style. Your fighter can perform 3 different kicks and 3 different punches, depending on where the hits land: high, medium and low. Thus, the control layout becomes quite intuitive after just a few minutes of play time. A classic energy indicator is used at the bottom of the screen to display the amount of damage you and the enemy can endure. Each time you or your enemy retreats both of you regain health. The controls are slow and that's really the only hiccup of this fun fighting game.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics on the C64 are colorful, without any particularly detailed backdrop. What is really impressive with this game is its convincing character animations. We did notice some frame-rate drops here and there when more detailed backgrounds are shown in some stages, but this is normal for a mid 80s vector-graphics title. As in all versions, the sound is fine and features a few. low quality, sampled sound effects, but there is no in-game music.