Karateka

	When I first saw this game back in the late 80's it swept me of my feet. It had to be the ultimate fighting game! It has very smooth animations, though a bit slow, if you compare it with other fighting games like The way of the exploding fist and has cutscenes after each level. Brøderbund used the smooth animations also in their later Prince of Persia-games.
Another appealing thing was that you had a mission, to save the young beautiful princess Mariko held prison in the evil warlord Akuma's fortress, and not just to kick down one enemy after another like in The way of the exploding fist and Yie ar kung fu. Now more than a decade later, I finally finished it and was a bit disappointed.
		The game is in three levels, outside the castle, inside the castle and in the cellar, each level has guards with different techniques, some defensive other offensive, and more advanced the closer you get to the princess. You also has to beat a few traps and a bird, Akuma's own eagle or falcon. But the guards ain't that hard to beat, not even Akuma himself take that many kicks and the game isn't as challenging as I first thought, but quite amusing anyway.
The game was published by Brøderbund Software in 1985. Brøderbund Software is now being owned by Mattel Interactive. The game was originally written for Apple II in 1984 by Jordan Mechner (Sound by Francis Mechner) and then ported to the C64.
Review by Stefan/C64GG
Conversions to other platforms: Atari600/800XL/130XE, Spectrum 48K, Amstrad CPC 464, Gameboy, NES, Apple II, PC



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