"Deep combat...shallow everything else.."

Combat games on the NES are pretty interesting in the respect that there are a handful that deal with the Karate sport in general. You have games such as Karate Champ and then you have another little known or least played by the name of Best of the Best Karate Championship. This game almost seems as though it is based off the series of movies that flopped at the box office, but had some pretty good action sequences. However, something that I’ve found is that this game is extremely technical and requires you to use quite a bit of strategy in order to be successful. On that same note, the presentation is exceptionally basic and features very little that will dazzle the gamer in terms of visual and audio display.

The sport of Karate is something that is apparently a big deal on the NES as there have been several games dedicated to the art of Kung Fu and martial arts. While this game really doesn’t have much going for it in presentation, there are plenty of things that you can do with the title to make it an enjoyable experience. Something that you have to keep in mind is that this is a technical type of game and you won’t be able to simply breeze through this using one or two moves. As you progress through the game, the opponents become tougher and more prone to blocking your attacks so you’ll have to switch them up from time to time in order to beat later fighters.

When you start the game, you’ll be given several different choices on how you want to play and just who you’re going to be fighting against. Throughout your fighting, you’ll be able to change your fighter’s moves and even bump his stats up to the point that need them to complete the next stage. One of the elements that I found to be most impressive is that there are eight different sets of moves that you can use on your opponent and they all tend to work. Once you’ve figured out how you want to fight and what moves you want to use, then you can fight your opponent and/or go to the gym and work on the stats to help with your battle.

The gym feature is pretty interesting because it is quite linear and to get the best out of your training, you have to be dead on with your attacks and otherwise. Most of the training is done in three sections, all of which are easy enough to figure out and help boost your stats either dramatically or just slightly depending on your skill. Once you’ve had enough of the training, you’ll be able to see how far your fighter has come and just how much more your fighter can take before an actual fight. When you’re done here, then you can move onto the next portion of things and fight the computer in a match in which you will hopefully win.

The matches themselves contain several rounds of fighting and the only thing that you have to do is keep your guy alive and hit your opponent often. When you have an opening, you need to take it and keep the pressure on in order to deplete the opponents life gauge. If you are unable to beat your opponent, then you know that you have to switch up the moves or go back to the gym and train up some more in order to chip off more damage. Fighting isn’t that difficult and requires little more than a directional press and a button press in order to get one of the various moves to come off.

The speed of your character however is strictly dictated by the game and you might find that there isn’t much that you can do to get the fighter across the screen. Fighting moves are selected earlier, so you’ll have to memorize just what button combination will get your fighter to throw a different move. Something else that you should be aware of is that the computer seems to take damage all the time, but hardly ever goes down before you do. If you do happen to get knocked down, hammering on the buttons will gain you just a little health, but don’t count on it to help you in the long run.

Visually, Best of the Best is extremely limited in what it has to offer in terms of the size of the characters and even the detail involved. Something that I found impressive about the visuals on the other hand is that the sprites for the ring announcer was done fairly well. The fighters moves tend to be a little jagged when they connect, but the animation tries hard to be smooth and fluid. Another thing that I disliked about the visuals is the fact that the fighters are so small on the screen and you literally have to squint to look at the screen. All in all, the design of the moves is good, but the execution is poor and it really shows.

The audio here is limited as well to the sounds of silence and an occasional beat in the background to attempt to bring the fight to life. While I can’t see the need for an occasional groan just randomly thrown in for good measure, I wish for it here. The sound effects are sparse, ranging from squeaky punches and kicks to the occasional thud when something finally makes contact. Again, this is a disappointment for such a technical game that has plenty of depth to the combat.

Best of the Best Karate is better than Karate Champ, but only for the fact that it has a technical edge attached to it that other karate games do not. Even with the amount of moves and the gym training that you can do, there isn’t enough in the presentation to really make it a top notch game. Although I enjoy the martial arts and I find plenty of combat here, the rest of the game is set at such a standard that it will sit at the middle of the road. If you like Karate as a sport, then you might enjoy this title based solely on the fact that it is technical and uses actual martial arts moves. Otherwise, keep searching for something else that looks and plays a little nicer than this.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/28/03