Karate Champ
| Karate Champ | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Technos Japan Corporation |
| Publisher(s) | Data East |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Virtual Console |
| Release date(s) | July 1984[1] Virtual Console
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| Genre(s) | Fighting |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players simultaneously |
| Cabinet | Upright |
| Display | Vertical orientation, Raster, standard resolution (Used: 224 x 256) |
Karate Champ, known in Japan as Karate Dō (空手道 "The Way of the Empty Hand") is a 1984 arcade game developed by Technos Japan Corporation for Data East. It is one of the first fighting games, and has been believed to be the first to use today's common side-perspective. However, Heavyweight Champ, released in Japan by Sega, used the same perspective and predates Karate Champ by eight years.[2]
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[edit] Overview
The player assumes the role of a Karate competitor and fights against another player or the computer. Using two joysticks, players can execute a number of moves.
Gameplay consists of a two dimensional fight between Karate characters wearing white and red gi, followed by various bonus rounds for the successful player. This pattern repeats itself in the next, more challenging round set against a new background. Unlike most later fighter-type games, there are no health bar or hit points. A hit successfully landed ends the round and earns the player or his opponent either one point or half point (along with a numeric score for the top ten but this has no effect on winning a match per se). The first to score two points is the winner. The game also featured some early speech synthesis, in which the judge would call out such phrases as "Fight!" or "Winner!" It's also spoken in Japanese in the Japanese version.
[edit] Player vs. Player edition
Karate Champ — Player vs Player (対戦空手道 美少女青春編 Taisen Karate Dō: Bishōjo Seishun Hen, "The Competitive Way of the Empty Hand: Pretty Maiden Edition") is a sequel to Karate Champ that was released for the arcades shortly after the original during the same year. Like its predecessor, it was published by Data East, but it is unclear if it was developed by Technos or by Data East.
The sequel is very similar to the original in the sense that they use the same hardware, have the same sprites and title screen, and the play mechanics are essentially the same although the computer AI is greatly improved along with control and hit detection. Whereas the original game started with the first level taking place at a dojo and all the following levels taking place at a tournament stadium, Player vs Player has the characters fighting it out over girls at locations around the world.
[edit]
Karate Champ was ported to the Apple II and the Commodore 64 by Berkeley Softworks. Data East began publishing the home versions in the US on October 12th 1985.[1]
The NES version was developed in-house by Data East USA and released in North America on November 1986. This version was inspired by the Player VS. Player edition of the arcade game. The port was later released in Japan for the Disk System on July 22, 1988, but never made it to the cartridge-based Family Computer. Data East published this version of the game, both in North America and Japan.
The arcade version was shown briefly in the movie Bloodsport starring Jean Claude Van Damme.
An emulation of the arcade version was released by Hamster for the PlayStation 2 as part of their Ore-tachi Gesen Zoku lineup.
On May 7, 2010 it was announced for release on the iPhone OS platform by developer Revolutionary Concepts.[3]
[edit] High score
According to Twin Galaxies, Jack Gale, of North Miami Beach, Florida, USA, scored a world record 259,800 points on Karate Champ, on June 28, 1987, during the 1987 Video Game Masters Tournament.
[edit] See also
- List of fighting games
- International Karate - A Home Computer conversion which Data East took to court for Copyright Infringement in a case known as Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Data East v. Epyx, 862 F. 2d 204, 9 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1322 (9th Cir. 1988).
- ^ "The Killer List of Video Games — Heavyweight Champ (1976)" (HTML). http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8099. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
- ^ Hodapp, Eli (2010-05-07). "Classic Fighter 'Karate Champ' Gameplay Video Released". http://toucharcade.com/2010/05/07/classic-fighter-karate-champ-gameplay-video-released/. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
