High atop a craggy cliff, guarded by an army of fierce warriors stands the fortress of the evil warlord Akuma. Deep in the darkest dungeon of the castle Akuma gloats over his lovely captive, the princess Mariko.
You are one trained in the way of karate: a Karateka. Alone and unarmed, you must defeat Akuma rescue the beautiful Mariko.Put fear and self-concern behind you. Focus your will on your objective, accepting death as a possibility. This is the way of the Karateka.
Beat-’em-ups, of fighting games are the staple of PC games and consoles, a trend largely inherited from the coin-op arcade forefathers.
On the consoles, you have dozens of realistic fighting games, like Street Fighter, Tekken, Power Stone, Dead or Alive, Mortal Kombat. Each game has a particular idea, which they execute pretty well, and that’s what make it a good game, apart from the literally hundreds of wannabe games out there.
But many years ago, the very first beat-’em-up game a humble little game we played on the monochrome screen called Karateka. At that time there were other great fighting games on other platforms, notably Double Dragon and The Way of the Exploding Fist.
Karateka, programmed by a guy called Jordan Mercer for Broderbund Software (they were also famous for Lode Runner, Mercer went on to Prince of Persia), came in a single 5.25″ floppy disk (yes, those days they came in 5.25″ disks only).
The game was super simple. This hero with while hair climbs up a mountain cliff onto Akuma’s lair (the bad master) who is holding the beautiful princess Mariko hostage (yeah, like the hero has still all the energy to fight after climbing up the mountain).
First you fight the guards outside the palace one by one (gee, don’t these henchmen know how to gang up on you? Or use weapons?!), then you enter the palace and fight the stronger henchmen. Finally, you take on Akuma’s annoying eagle, then the great master himself. And finally, if you win, you get to save the princess…
The game was simple, with 3 punches and 3 kicks (high, medium and low, go figure), a far cry from all the combos and juggling attacks you get on Tekken or Virtua Fighter.
Some interesting stuff i remember from the game:
- The sound and music was pretty good for such an early game.
- There was a gate at the entrance to the castle. If you ran straight into it, it would fall down on you and instantly killed you…
- If you approached Princess Mariko with a fighting stance, she’d kick you down and you die. Yeah, i know it’s cruel…
- As with most games of that era, you couldn’t save the game at any point. Which really added to the fun of the game…
I remember my friends and i were really crazy about the game, one of ’em had an all-expensive colour monitor and we could see Akuma’s regal costume in full colour. There are emulators around the internet for the game, but i really wish i had my old apple II to fire up the game one last time… Meanwhile i should probably stick to the latest Street Fighter on the Playstation.
[tags]apple ii, apple, karateka, games, gaming[/tags]
14 Comments
mott
wahhhh..this brings back memories..I used to play karateka sooo much with my bro. He always managed to complete the game…after a very long time…I did too..damn proud after that! HA HA HA!
Infectioner
ahhh… I rmb this game! But I don’t have any good memories of it because I always lose -___-
vincent
Wahey! I remember this game!
My cousin in the kampung had this game on his old computer and we would play it every CNY.
I remember it being a completely green screen – no colour!
inevitable
Wow wow… I played this when I was in hmm… standard 5. My favourite game. You can actually download the emulator and play this game
Pat
I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the screenshot 🙂 I used to play it on a (rich) friend’s Apple II. Don’t know why, but I still prefer games from those days instead of the “virtual reality” stuff of today.
JoeC
wahhh, long time man, yes, still remember karateka, playing in my cousin colour pc man so the wonderful, play all nite as well. One funny thing, when you climb up and if you reverse and fall off the cliff, the hero will die! lol.
Play others like Artic Fox, some Olmpic games, carmen sandiego and some strategic games… all names forgotten just image. Cheers!
lucia
oh i remember playing karateka on our apple II monochrome computer. i like this game and i managed to get to rescue the princess (with some cheat! haha) but after a long long time.
i enjoyed playing prince of persia too but the game i love most was lode runner. think i did wrote about lode runner in one of my post.
my first loved adventure game was ‘where in the world is carmen sandiego’ and the other version ‘where in europe…’ and i think ‘where in america too…’. oh there is also ‘where in time…’. this is a good general knowledge game, esp. where geography and history is concerned.
simon
looks like i’m not the only old skool gamer around… carmen sandiego was really great. i prolly played the game over and over a thousand times…
Shan
Dang! I sooo remember this on a green screen. There were only a handful of games out back then, another one being a private investigator one where u got to decide where the character would go next to pick up clues etc.
simon
er, carmen sandiego?
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Me
I was wondering why the author of this game made it that way, that when you move to Mariko in attacking stance she gives you a fatal kick at the head…
Was it because the author wanted the player to tackle one more trick that could kill you and restart the game to make it…annoying hahaha.
Eidos
The princess must have been trained in karate since she was four years old…I men how the hell can she deliver a kick powerful enough to be assumably lethal? And if she could kill with a single kick to the chest, then whycouldn’t she kill Akuma outright by kicking him in the head?
Watch Karateka: Wrath of Dude if you wanna see how to get revenge on her XD
BTW how the hell am I supposed to get through the motherfrakking GATE?!
awrus199
lol, after massacring like 1000 people with kicks and punches you die by a single kick from the lady who’s supposed to love you in the first place…