Karateka

Genre:

Action

Year:

1986

Developer:

Brøderbund Software

Publisher:

Brøderbund Software

Perspective:

3rd-person

Theme:

Fighting, Martial Arts

Releases:

Game Boy (1984), Apple II (1984), Commodore 64 (1985), Atari 8-bit (1985), NES (1985), DOS (1986), Atari 7800 (1987), Atari ST (1988), Amstrad CPC (1990), ZX Spectrum (1990)

Storyline is classic one: a great villain Akuma has kidnapped the love of your life - beautiful princess Mariko and now you have to go on a dangerous journey to save her. Nothing, however, will be easy - the princess is imprisoned in a mountain fortress guarded by elite fighters and so on the way to rescue her, you must overcome a number of enemies and use your knowledge of martial arts of Karate - that's why the game name is Karateka. The original game was created in 1984 for the Apple II computers, and immediately became a hit, especially because of the many innovations that it has brought into the computer games (motion animation, cut-scenes that illustrate the story). Game was designed by Jordan Mechner - later famous for creating another gaming legend: Prince of Persia (after all, Prince has several elements in common with Karateka - running animation, fighting and even health meter is very similar). In game, you can use 3 types of kicks (keys W, S, X) and 3 types of punching (keys Q, A, Z) - divided by their height: high, medium and low. The goal is to defeat all the enemies, which are constantly sent to fight you by the main villain, beat Akuma alone and wait for the moment when princess will run into your arms.