"Down to the basics."

It's hard to deny how cool that bull was in Karate Champ. But Yie Ar Kung Fu(YA) is the first to have a whole mess of weirdos flying around the screen along with all those nifty colors. You, as Oolong, must fight through eleven of them so you can...do it all over again and pile up more points!

No, back in the eighties, fighting games didn't really have plot. They didn't even have strict eating regimens to make their fighters bulge with muscles. Or terribly creative names. But they did have that something that made even the easy fights worth playing through.

Perhaps I should have used the singular here as I am in a bit over my head. YA didn't have any of this. It just had a collection of hooligans you had to beat because they were there. Your first taste is when some bullet headed fatty called Buchu comes flying at you. It's pretty clear what to do here, and after Buchu you face some very prototypical opponents. Star whips snowflakes at you, Nuncha's and Pole's range can foil your shorter kicks and punches, and Feedle...well, once you realize it's not just one wimp coming from the side of the screen but a whole bunch, you'll have little trouble.

That is the section of the game described as 'Hot Fighting History.' Later you move to the Masterhand History and it's tough to tell whether the first bit is actually harder than the second. You will probably have the jump-and-kick rhythm down by then and it isn't until Tonfun's multiple hits and Blues's uncanny ability to whack you even more often that the game gets tricky. Along the way there's Chain whose attack snakes out obviously, Club whose shield prevents you from the blunt attacks you probably found don't work anyway, Fan whose weird missiles spin around and ultimately miss you, and Sword, who might get in a few surreptitious hits before you start being scared.

It's a bit annoying near the end as you have to jump diagonally and repeat, but the game often thinks you're just trying to jump up. It's a matter of time before a vicious combo starts, and though it takes a while to make the hit noise, pause a bit to let you know you goofed, and loop your helpless self through it again, the fighting and posturing takes relatively little time. You'll probably lose pretty quickly, feast on the nine previous cupcakes, and get jolted by the tougher difficulty several times before working out what to do.

The good options do seem limited as low shots are the order of the day, which is a pity. Using the punch or kick button and moving can execute some pretty slick moves. You have flying punches and kicks, and there's a great sort of scorpion kick where you fall on your butt like you lost the fight and smack opponents in the face. It's almost as exciting as the occasional midair collision--which never happens during your more basic maneuvers of jumping back and forth over the enemy ten times before he drops his guard, walks to near where you'll land and leaves himself open for a hit. The only thing you can't easily do is jump away from your opponent. You have to slouch back, which gets old in a different way from your other dodging staple: a thirty foot sideways leap over his head. Maybe the bad guy gets dizzy watching you after a while.

YA is different from most modern fighting games in the organization as well. You have lives, as in a classic video game, with an opportunity for extras, especially after you pile up points from a perfect fight. If you go down, that is one life lost. Fights are pretty short with eight hits determining a winner, and often when enemies clinch they take off several hits right away.

YA takes place in front of a rushing waterfall(I mean, it's going the speed limit on a major highway) until the Masterhand fights, where you're in front of a pagoda. Very nondescript and likeable, similar to the characters you fight, who have one move where they wind up and shuffle forward, marionetting their arms up and down. It's never quite clear when you hit them as often you'll seem to connect, but fortunately it's easy enough to get a feel for the game, and you should be able to get in very close anyway. Well, at least the crouching and flying moves are crowd pleasers, and the only fat contestants are the males.

The sound rounds out the stereotypes with the unceasing background music as a precursor to the sino-kitsch that was so well honed in Kid Niki. At least it is not particularly memorable. There's also some perfunctory cymbal clashing and humming and thwapping for when opponents smack at you with their various weapons.

YA gives a good look at basic ideas fighters can pull off. I suppose it was a decent precursor to a genre I can barely stomach anyway. But the only reason I settled on it was that I wanted to play an arcade game starting with 'Y,' and walking away I can't see much reason to replay it, suffering through the inevitable wins in the first nine levels for a prolonged and likely futile shot at the last two(no continue, of course.) Oh well. I suppose this faux longevity makes up for the lack of bothersome violence that turns me against the more modern fighters.

YIE-HAR!
--doesn't make me feel dumb like modern fighters
--flying/crouching kicks are pretty cool
--many different strategies(for monsters at least)

YIEARGH!
--weird collision detection
--goofy learning curve, tiresome to retry
--no one character has personality, or even a cool name

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/16/03