Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. LJN had a ton of licenses under their belt during the NES era. Some seem like they’d make logical games like the Marvel and WWF licenses with hit and miss results at best. Then there were licenses like Bill and Ted, or Back to the Future, that while great films, didn’t really translate into great video games. And that brings us to this week’s review. It’s time to wax on, wax off, as we wax nostalgic with The Karate Kid? Is it the best around, or does it take a crane kick to the face?
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1987
PUBLISHER: LJN
GENRE: Action Platformer
The Karate Kid was a 1984 martial arts drama about a kid named Daniel, who after moving to San Fernando, and running afoul with a bunch of bullies from the Cobra Kai Dojo, befriends a handyman by the name of Mr. Miyagi, who teaches Daniel Karate. The movie was a hit, making over 90 million at the box office. It has since been the movie that many underdog stories have based themselves on.
The success of the first movie was enough to build a franchise around The Karate kid. This would lead to three sequels, and even a short lived Saturday morning cartoon. And while the first movie was considered a classic, the sequels that followed weren’t as good. Especially Karate Kid III, which felt like the first movie all over again.
But as interest over the first sequel came about, there would of course be a video game adaptation. The toy company LJN, noticing the popularity of the newcomer NES console, threw their name into the hat and started publishing games for the console. Their first releases were Jaws, Gotcha! The Sport, and The Karate Kid. The game was developed by Atlus Entertainment, which has since gone on to make many classic titles, including the popular Shin Megami Tensei series.
The Karate Kid has been considered by many as one of the worst games on the NES, and is one of the very first games reviewed by famed Internet character The Angry Video Game Nerd. But is it really that bad? Let’s get a bit further.
COVER STORY
The cover is decent enough. Surprisingly not going for just throwing the movie poster on the box, they went instead for decent caricatures of Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. It’s eye catching for fans of the film, but nothing to really write home about. A decent at best LJN box.
STORY
Based on The Karate Kid Part II, Daniel-San and Mr. Miyagi head to Okinawa so that Miyagi can see his dying father while dealing with an old rival, his former friend Sato. While there, Daniel runs afoul of a rival of his own in Chozen, Sato’s nephew, as well as his gang. Can Daniel survive?
GAMEPLAY
The Karate Kid is a one to two player action Platformer. You control Daniel as you go through four levels, mostly platforming levels as you deal with the onslaught of thugs while eventually making it to fight Chozen. You move Daniel with the D-Pad, punch with A, kick with B, duck with the down button and jump with the up button. This already leads to the first problem with the game, and that’s the jumping. While it still works, it does feel awkward to do for a platformer on the NES.
Daniel’s basic attacks are punches and kicks. which will usually dispatch most enemies in one strike. Though for the trickier enemies, you can use the crane kick or drum punch abilities. These are most often found by defeating an enemy (C icons that give health and an extra crane kick), or through one of the three bonus levels. They can only be used when standing still, so if you want to preserve them for tougher spots, it’s best to keep on moving while striking.
The game is broken into four stages. Each based on events from both Katate Kid and Karate Kid Part II. You begin the game at the martial arts tournament from the first film. The object is to deafeat all four opponents to advance. You get a fair amount of crane kicks to start off, but they run out. The only real issue is that your health will not refill after any of the matches.
Defeat that stage, and make it to the three final stages, each set in Okinawa. Each are your basic platforming levels that scroll from left to right as you constantly have to fight the same two thugs who most often just attack you with low kicks and punches, but will sometimes throw boulders at you. In level two, it’s a bit simpler, but stage three adds wind and flying debris, and stage four adds rolling bounders, spear handling enemies, and other annoyances. Each of the three final levels ends with a fight against Chozen.
Yes, the game really is just four stages. But it’s one of those “short but challenging” games, where the difficulty is upped due to a never ending wave of enemies, or bland levels pointlessly extended. A plus at least is the game has a “map
that shows how far you are in the stage. But the real annoyance is the enemies themselves, who can often hit you faster than you can hit them, or will often gang up on you. And since Daniel suffers from a case of Belmont Bounceback whenever he gets hit, this can lead to cheap moments like being knocked into a pit, or being damage volleyed back and forth due to not having any post-damage invincibility.
Breaking from the monotony of the levels is three bonus levels. These are based on different techniques Daniel uses in the movies. The ice break stage has Daniel chopping a set of ice blocks.The amount you break is dependent on where the meter on top is when you stop it to chop. The next one is the fly catch, where you have to catch flies with chopsticks. Pretty simple to get the hang of. Just press A when the fly is in the middle of the chopstick. The final bonus stage is the swinging hammer, which you have to dodge a number of times to survive. It’s the trickiest one to get the hang of as you must time your strikes to dodge the hammer that comes at you.
There is also a one on one mode, which isn’t really anything special. Just a quick two player fighting match against Daniel and Chozen. Because of how much damage each can do to one another, it doesn’t take long for a win to be made.
The game has no continues or passwords. You get three lives total, and you can earn more with each 20 thousand points increase. Certain characters will refill some or all of your health, but other than that, you have to survive as best you can. While the game has decent controls, the hit detection really holds it down as it can be easy to get hit without being touched, or be unable to get a shot in before taking a lot of damage. So despite the short length of the game, it does suffer from many moments of high frustration.
There is a trick to ensure that you don’t just have to face the same two enemies with every step. If you can get the enemies behind you and keep them on screen, you won’t have to worry about enemies in front of you, so you can take less damage. It’s a bit of a cheat, but for some of the game’s annoyances, it is a definite help.
GRAPHICS
The graphics are pretty good for an early NES. Levels do feel like they come straight from the movie, and the sprites, while few, are well detailed. It’s even a nice touch that Daniel’s attire changes in certain levels. It’s only a shame that there’s not really a good variety of enemies. Other than that, there’s not much to complain about on the graphical end.
MUSIC
The music in the game is honestly pretty forgettable. Nothing offending to the ears, just nothing that really jumps out and catches your interest. The best song though would be the 2nd level theme, but it’s nothing too amazing in its own right. Again, I’ve heard worse soundtracks on the NES, but this was just average at best.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
For one of the first LJN games, The Karate Kid does not start them off on a high note. Despite actually doing a decent job of following the film it’s based on, it still suffers from short gameplay hidden behind annoying difficulty and sloppy hit detection, as well as the annoying knock back that is made worse with no damage invincibility. At least the bonus stages are kinda fun at least. It reminds me a lot like Kung Fu, but with far less polish and a lot less fun factor. In the end, The Karate Kid is just like a lot of licensed games released by LJN. Interesting on paper, but poorly developed and not up to snuff. So, in the end I’d say that this one is easily worth avoiding. It’s not the best around.
RATING: Thumbs Down