Karate Champ

"Absolutely pointless!.."

Ok, so now here's my 128th review, and if you want my honest opinion I'm extremely disappointed with the game in question. It is Data East's Karate Champ. It's only slightly better than Karate Kid, which has got to be the worst fighter I've ever played in my life. That game was just as pointless as this one, but worse, because there was too much music. That game has...let's se...six or eight songs, but there should have been...well...zero would have been good, or at least the existing ones could have been a hell of a lot better. Unfortunately they're not. Karate Champ has four songs, all of which play between matches and none of which seem to be very long except the title screen theme. They're much better than those in Karate Kid, but when you hear the SFX...well...let's get to that at the proper time, shall we? First, let's look at the...
Gameplay 3-10. It wouldn't be so bad, but the special moves are a bit unresponsive in my experience. The manual doesn't even explain 'em very well either. The game itself is a series of karate matches, with rounds lasting until either one player scores two points or thirty seconds time elapses. Whoever wins two rounds in a row is the winner...or something. I almost think it would have been better not to include the special moves, but oh well...
Control ? Well, I'm not gonna score this one, since there are probably those of you who will disagree. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. I won't say they were unresponsive since I never could figure out what the hell it was supposed to do.
Audio 4-10. There are at most four songs as I may have said earlier, and they're all pretty good. I was expecting some nice pumped-up match music. No such luck. Three of the songs seem to play whe you win or lose a match and when all your continues are exhausted, and then there's the title theme. The sound effecs, unfortunately, though not bad at first, can quickly become extremely irritating. The speach is the worst part of the sound effects department. It has got to be some of the worst speach I've ever heard from the NES, even including Adventures of Bayou Billy. I get the impression that the programmers didn't put much effort into it. On the whole, very bad, especially the effect that plays when you pause the game...god that's annoying! Well, it's not as bad as Karate Kid, but it doesn't have much going for it in my book. Now, let's take a look at the...
Story ? Well, you have nine karate matches in various settings. Win them all to win the game. I think I'll stick with Mortal Kombat, thanks.
Overall 2-10. Stay away from this game, or at least don't rush out and buy a copy if you really want to try it. If you don't like it you'll want to be able to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Rent it or download a ROM.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 04/30/02, Updated 03/01/03