Karateka

[i][b]TL;DR:[/b]Good, short, rhythm-action game worth the price to pay considering the replay value. Innovative use of sound cues. Easy to play, difficult to master. Fully compatible with controllers; Don't know why the devs never added that.[/i] [hr][/hr] While this remake of Karateka is not all too close to the original 8-bit game, it holds up well as a spiritual successor and simultaneously manages to be quite fun and entertaining. The game is pretty simple in itself, but can have a bit of complexity to it, although I would not call it a technical fighting game. It's more of a rhythm game that involves fighting as opposed to a game with Quick Time Events. Make no mistakes about it, the game does require concentration and perfecting it is a difficult task. But it won't really get boring no matter how many times you play it. The tale is quite straightforward. Princess Mariko had been kidnapped by an evil warlord named Akuma and three people set forth to set her free. The first is her lover, the second is a monk, and the final one is a brute. Whoever manages to rescue Mariko will become her suitor. The rest of it just a sequence of one-on-one battle with enemies and bosses…

A surprisingly fun take on a rhythm game in the form of a vintage martial arts film... at least until you hit a difficulty spike with the final boss, but that did make it satisfying when I finally beat him. NOTE: I was not able to get the game to launch until I installed the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer from Microsoft.

When this 2012 remake came out the original 'Karateka' had been out for 28 years, which I think we can all agree is more than enough time to come up with something to modernize the game for current platforms. Will 'Karateka' live up to it's 1984 predecessor or will it fall flat in trying to capture the original feeling? The story here is pretty much the same. Akuma captures Prince Mariko and it's your job to fight through Akuma's forces in order to get her, but the one change they do is that they give you 3 protagonists instead of just 1, they don't change very much except for the endings. You'll get a "True Love" ending as the Karateka aka "True Love," a non romantic more neutral ending as the Monk since they are apart of the same tribe, and lastly you get a non romantic ending as the Brute. The goal is still the same, the outcomes change, but not to a big degree. The gameplay here is vastly different compared to the original as well, whether or not that's a good or bad thing you can decide, but I actually enjoyed the gameplay quite a bit here. Instead of going for something more realistic all around, this game goes for something a little bit more arcadey centered around rhythm.…

I recommend this because of the price and it is fine for what it is - a quick, almost too simple, QTE, hand-holding game. The whole thing feels like a tutorial intro level to a bigger experience, but it is not. It is also not a great remake of a beloved classic. While I appreciate the effort here, the remastered version of the original Karateka (available as part of "The Making of Karateka" - also on Steam), is a far superior update of the original, near masterpiece of a game. I'm also not a fan of the visual style of this, as its modern kiddie aesthetics strip away all the darkness, coolness, mysteriousness, and brooding atmosphere of the original.

grateful to see an updated remake of this, i have fond memories of playing the original in the 80s

Is it a faithful recreation of the original Karateka? Eh, kinda I guess, but the lack of any actual combat mechanics is still pretty disappointing. On top of that, the reused attack patterns, plastic/emotionless faces used for some characters, and forced tutorial at the beginning of the game/runs make it extremely rough around the edges too. It's cheap is probably one of the best things I can say about it, but recommending it to anyone who isn't a curious fan of the original is a hard sell