(Played and Finished through "The Making of Karateka" from 2023)

The original Apple II version of Karateka is quite a hard one to quantify and qualify; on one hand here lies one of the most groundbreaking games of all time, responsible for influencing games like Ninja Gaiden on early cutscenes and for being a notable very early example of rotoscoping for realism in movement, something taken to extremes in 1991's Mortal Kombat. The level of detail for the time and sheer effort is unmistakable and Karateka really did game so much to the game industry in its time.

However, upon actually playing it there's a lot to be desired, especially in a modern setting. Chief of this is the degree to which movement is delayed, something which is vital to success. You are able to move away from an adversary and even cancel out of a current string of attacks to evade, but once the Karateka takes a step back or forward he commits completely - a movement which can take an entire second.

In Level 3, where your health bar is substantially lower than all of your adversaries, this can actually become very frustrating and contribute to a feeling of lack of complete control, leaving you often vulnerable to the opponent's next attack because the AI is made to respond to your last input rather than account for human error. Other than this though, the level of pure strategy involved really does a good job of accurately mirroring the strategy of karate itself for its time.

What makes the gameplay engaging is what made it unlike other games of its time-- it favors cinematic presentation and fluidity of motion over precision. Well, most of the time. Beyond the basic aspects of the combat, kicking and punching at different heights, there's the added aspect of having momentum to your movement and needing to maneuver yourself before and during confrontations. It creates a real tension when you're deeply studying the enemy behavior in order to figure out how you're going to go about the fight-- should you back up and try to fake them out, or would a well-timed step forward and downward kick open an opportunity for some damage?

Two little design choices make it a bit rough, the existence of a trap that instakills you and isn't very easy to figure out how to maneuver past, as well as a mini-boss in the form of a vulture that requires more precision to fight than anything else in the game, which is very tough considering the considerable lag between input and action. Both constitute a difficulty spike that will easily kill a player who otherwise, through careful and considered approach, could beat the game in a few attempts after getting into the feel of the combat well enough.

I found everything about the game very impressive, it's visually very beautiful, the music has a lot of effect for being so minimal, and the sense of momentum and flow in the movements seems like something that just shouldn't be possible on such a platform. Shows you what can be achieved within tight limits if you have the vision and know-how.

Played on The Making of Karateka (2023) documentary game on steam. Of the included versions, this original was my favorite, I just thought it felt the best in moment-to-moment action and visuals. However the sound is way cooler in the others, and the remake in that collection is pretty faithful to the core design concepts.

Um jogo de Karate com animações de dar inveja a vários jogos do NES.
O enredo é simples, donzela raptada, vá fazer algo de útil. Com cutscenes in-game, acredito que esse jogo foi criado pelo mesmo produtor de Prince of Pérsia, o que explicaria a quantidade extensa de quadros de animação.
Cada inimigo que encontra inicia uma luta estilo street fighter, apenas lembre-se sempre de apertar pra baixo para entrar em modo luta, senão leva uma lapada na bochecha que te manda embora.

Uma coisa que eu fazia era entrar em modo luta no início do jogo e dar um passo pra trás. Ele cai do barranco, é muito bom kkkkkkkk

(original Apple II version)

Impressive? Yes. Influential? Very. A decade plus ahead of its time? Absolutely. Fun and/or entertaining? Not really.

Important to try to remember what other games looked and played like in 1984 when trying to evaluate this, but still, it is what it is.

(Jogado sabe se lá em quantas versões em The Making of Karateka)

Principalmente depois de horas de documentário mostrando o quão incrível Karateka era pra época, é fácil entender a importância histórica dele. E devo dizer que as animações e os motifs musicais ainda impressionam muito.

Mas eu não consegui jogar mais que 15 minutos de nenhuma das versões originais, é realmente um produto de sua época. Se quiser realmente JOGAR, aconselho procurar Karateka Remastered na coletânea e focar nele.

[Played via Digital Eclipse release]

For an Apple II 80's game, this is tremendously impressive not just in its cinematic scale, but how it plays. Granted I still needed to use a rewind feature to see the game to its conclusion, but I've played games made even afterwards with those features that I chose to retire instead.

Can absolutely see how this would go on to evolve into Prince of Persia

A benchmark for the time that holds up better than I expected it ever could. Filmography techniques and music stings are applied to create these memorable emotional swells despite the limited nature of the game's expression. Fights are well balanced until the game's end, where the difficulty spikes, but players familiar with spacing from beat-em-ups or fighting games from today should be able to adjust quickly. All in all delighted that my first time with this title was through the lens of "The Making of Karateka", it really amplified the experience.

https://youtu.be/zezGNED3XfI

I've heard that in Sifu the main characther keeps getting his health reduced every time he dies. Well, in Karateka the health keeps getting reduced more realistically: as you go on fighting more and more enemies your health starts capping lower and lower because logically one guy going against so many people would mean his stamina decreases

I wish there was more intricate A.I., better hitboxes and more setpieces to make use of this though, the combat feels repetitive and exploitable and it's overall a very barebones and short game