"I created Karateka while attending Yale in the early 1980s. My goal was to create a game that was visually sophisticated yet so easy to play that even a non-gamer could immediately pick up the joystick and become addicted. Karateka's success proved to me (and to my parents) that this could be a legitimate career. It helped me decide, right after college, to go on and make Prince of Persia. I was lucky to have Robert Cook to do the Commodore 64 port; he had a great eye for detail in graphics and sound." -- Jordan Mechner, original designer
Sure, Karateka was the first game created by Jordan Mechner, who also designed Prince of Persia five years later. Karateka features some of the things that made Prince of Persia famous, like rotoscoped animations and cutscenes between levels. Amazing games, both of them.
cletus9791 Yes, indeed. All these 12 year olds commenting on here just have no idea how much of a leap forward this was. I mean, you had what? Pong and Leap Frog, which was a great game also but this was definitely my fav, as someone who actually came from the generation that played this as a kid.
As a kid I watched my dad play this. If you got hit while running, you died instantly. That bird was a pain in the ass. My dad must have had the patience of a saint as he would have me sit on his lap and he actually beat this more than once as I watched. Memories...
i remember it was one of the first games i've seen on the commodore - it was pretty amazing. the animation was outstanding, just like later in prince of persia.
Karateka was one of those many games I had that was courrputed and wouldnt get past a minute or two into the game, thanks to youtube, 35 years later I can now see what I missed.
You can kill the gate guard instantly, if you time it right. Get close, bow, and then hit him while he's bowing back. It's very hard to do; I pulled it off a couple of times as a kid, but it can be done.
I, too, had a helluva time figuring out how get past that stupid gate. And then one time - ONE TIME - I do make it past that gate, I get to the last guy, defeat him, only for the princess to kill me with a single kick just because I didn't run to her. Pissed me off big time.
I played this game back then and beat it multiple times. Great game lots of fun. I didn't think it was very hard compared to some of the ridiculous games on c64 like Green Beret.
Such memories! I used to play this on an Apple II in homeroom in high school and the teacher never knew the games were on there. Was kind of crazy running full speed ahead and not stopping in time and then get 1-hit knocked out.
Yeah, the animation and graphics are quite good. Surprising that very few developers decided to go the minimalistic approach. Thanks for putting up the video! I never got very far in this game.
One of the very few games on the C64 that I actually managed to complete - even though I never figured out how to run. I only ever moved forward with these slow side-steps, so I had to beat an entire army of enemies cause *they* of course know how to run :D
I used to play this back in the early 80's on the Apple iie. Also on the commodore 64. To my surprise there is a port to the Android now which is quite good.
Something seems off. As I remember it, if you didn't bow to the princess at final scene before approaching her, she'd kick you in the nuts -- game over. It was the only time that the bow motion ever was required. You could optionally bow to your opponents prior to fighting and they'd bow back.
this game is awsome, it is so dramatic, with the music and story, and do not walk up to the girl to hug her, because she will NOT LIKE IT you must run to her my lad,,, if you walk up to her she gets MEAN
I always remember this game as a love/hate game. Loved the general game but my god was it frustratingly slow and the controls were awkward at best due to it
I played it back then. A game bug, or maybe i had a bad crack of this game, changed the ending into something unsettling and strange. Or straight out eerie. Prince of Persia 0 - Get Big in Japan xD
This killed me. I had to find the answer 30 years later. I could never ever get past the gate. It always fell on me. I thought it was a bug in the game. No interweb to check then.... Now I see that you punched then it fell. How the fuck did anybody figure that out?!? Fuck it, was always your poor man's Way of The Exploding First anyway.
No bow. Just set the gate off by getting close, then wait, and when it's almost to the top, you go into the run position and run through just before it reaches the top.
Waaait. Hold on. The intro shown here does not play as it actually did. The text scroll ends too early and cuts to the cinematic but the text music is still playing over the cinematic. The cinematic has its own sounds.
Wow, i remember playing that game for a long time. Only did beat the end boss a fiew times, and then died vs the princess because i Always entered the room in the fighting stance… I had most difficulties vs the bird. I see now how to beat it lol, just a bit to late. .. I was Young, like 13 or so :D
Halligen1972 rewind to 1985 and this was an 11. Which is probably how old you are and you have no idea how easy he just made that look. There was NOTHING like this back then!
I played this game back in the day and I remember if you approached the girl in fighting stance instead of running to her she would kick you in the face and kill you.
I probably had a bugged game, I remember at 11:48 I couldn't go accross the door, it repelled me as if there was an invisible door. Never understood why it kept me away.
Me too... tried all the moves and it was also in the reviews at the time about people not getting past the door.... I suspect it was a problem with the cassette version... in the US it seemed most people had disks.
Funny how we can sometimes recall very old very specific memories. In this case playing the game for a bit, thinking this is really garbage, and never playing it again. Awkward game speed, controls, limited moves, repetitive fights, ridiculous health bar, no real game progression.
Seems to me the side scrolling is 8 pixels at a time, so it could just be replacing text characters. A nice detail is how the perspective on the window bars changes when they pass across the center of the screen.
Bigg TK Nuggs it was fun, and the animation was beyond amazing for the time. But the commodore version was sloooooow. I played the shit out of this game when it came out. But rye poor coding made is so slow and the controls were so unresponsive it was almost impossible.
![NES Longplay [613] Karateka](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RJoHgELbO5s/mqdefault.jpg)
![C64 Longplay [090] Samurai Warrior - The Battles of Usagi Yojimbo](/img/n.gif)
"I created Karateka while attending Yale in the early
1980s. My goal was to create a game that was visually
sophisticated yet so easy to play that even a non-gamer
could immediately pick up the joystick and become
addicted. Karateka's success proved to me (and to my
parents) that this could be a legitimate career. It helped
me decide, right after college, to go on and make Prince
of Persia. I was lucky to have Robert Cook to do the
Commodore 64 port; he had a great eye for detail
in graphics and sound."
-- Jordan Mechner, original designer
I was 10 playing this on the commodore 64. BEST experience ever. Still remember at 51. The music, the drama. FIRST CLASS GAME
Sure, Karateka was the first game created by Jordan Mechner, who also designed Prince of Persia five years later. Karateka features some of the things that made Prince of Persia famous, like rotoscoped animations and cutscenes between levels. Amazing games, both of them.
cletus9791 Yes, indeed. All these 12 year olds commenting on here just have no idea how much of a leap forward this was. I mean, you had what? Pong and Leap Frog, which was a great game also but this was definitely my fav, as someone who actually came from the generation that played this as a kid.
As a kid I watched my dad play this. If you got hit while running, you died instantly. That bird was a pain in the ass. My dad must have had the patience of a saint as he would have me sit on his lap and he actually beat this more than once as I watched. Memories...
Akuma should have sent all his guards out at once
Captain Klotz yea, this guy killed it! It took me a YEAR to get my girl back lol
He tried, but 64k of RAM stopped him.
Played it on my commador 64 lol. I loved the intro music
It's amazing how much better the sound was on the C64 than the Apple
Not really that amazing when you consider the C64 had a dedicated sound chip and the apple did not.
Apple sounds were better IMO
"No way, you don't SID?"
i remember it was one of the first games i've seen on the commodore - it was pretty amazing. the animation was outstanding, just like later in prince of persia.
Karateka was one of those many games I had that was courrputed and wouldnt get past a minute or two into the game, thanks to youtube, 35 years later I can now see what I missed.
One of my faves for sure!
This was such a great game, and getting killed by the damsel at the end because I didn't run into her arms was the biggest kick in the teeth!
You can kill the gate guard instantly, if you time it right. Get close, bow, and then hit him while he's bowing back. It's very hard to do; I pulled it off a couple of times as a kid, but it can be done.
daveincognito yes!
Don’t you just kick him in the face? Lol.
Dishonorable as hell, man
This was my childhood. Maybe it's why I'm still not that fussed about fps. :P
I, too, had a helluva time figuring out how get past that stupid gate. And then one time - ONE TIME - I do make it past that gate, I get to the last guy, defeat him, only for the princess to kill me with a single kick just because I didn't run to her. Pissed me off big time.
Sounds like a woman alright. :)
Clearly she was a Bryan Adams fan
punching was the easiest way to beat the bird
But kicking was SO much more fun! 😂
Just give the bird the bird(secret move in my head), works every time.
Holy flashback! Awesome game! My version always failed to work after getting past the drop gate. Nice to see how it ends after 20+ years. lol.
I played this game back then and beat it multiple times. Great game lots of fun. I didn't think it was very hard compared to some of the ridiculous games on c64 like Green Beret.
Such memories! I used to play this on an Apple II in homeroom in high school and the teacher never knew the games were on there. Was kind of crazy running full speed ahead and not stopping in time and then get 1-hit knocked out.
The cover art for these games was amazing and brought so much character to the product even if it was often much better than the actual games lol.
wow!!! I have just remember this game! I really liked it! Thanks for the video.
Ahh the hours i spent on this gsme. ;-)
I never knew how to get by the spiked gate in the C64 version. Only finished this on NES. Thanks for the memories!
Yeah, the animation and graphics are quite good. Surprising that very few developers decided to go the minimalistic approach. Thanks for putting up the video! I never got very far in this game.
This is a masterpiece of art
really liked this game its lasted the ages
so epic, brings back memories this one!
One of the very few games on the C64 that I actually managed to complete - even though I never figured out how to run. I only ever moved forward with these slow side-steps, so I had to beat an entire army of enemies cause *they* of course know how to run :D
I used to play this back in the early 80's on the Apple iie. Also on the commodore 64.
To my surprise there is a port to the Android now which is quite good.
Oh
My
God...
The memories!!!
10:32 - the door was the hardest part of the whole damn game.
I never made it past that when I was a kid lol,happy this vid is up I can see what's past it
hondobondo ya, that dam bird would piss you rtf off lol
It was in fact.... i made it in 1 year... was very hard... too memories
just amazing as for c64 standards
Something seems off. As I remember it, if you didn't bow to the princess at final scene before approaching her, she'd kick you in the nuts -- game over. It was the only time that the bow motion ever was required. You could optionally bow to your opponents prior to fighting and they'd bow back.
As I recall it, you just have to make sure NOT to enter the fighting stance... So simply running into her arms works :)
Ahh... I had reflexively stopped at the entrance of every stage, thus entering the stance!
@@rogerwennstrom6677 When I met Jordan at Ubi, I just said, "She kicked me." He said, "I'm sorry." :D
First permadeath game I played :-)
haha that's classic.. I never even thought of it that way until now. Nice! You're right!
this game is awsome, it is so dramatic, with the music and story, and do not walk up to the girl to hug her, because she will NOT LIKE IT you must run to her my lad,,, if you walk up to her she gets MEAN
yes and he is remaiking this game for PS3 and Xbox 360
I always remember this game as a love/hate game. Loved the general game but my god was it frustratingly slow and the controls were awkward at best due to it
I played it back then. A game bug, or maybe i had a bad crack of this game, changed the ending into something unsettling and strange. Or straight out eerie.
Prince of Persia 0 - Get Big in Japan xD
This killed me. I had to find the answer 30 years later. I could never ever get past the gate. It always fell on me. I thought it was a bug in the game. No interweb to check then.... Now I see that you punched then it fell.
How the fuck did anybody figure that out?!?
Fuck it, was always your poor man's Way of The Exploding First anyway.
No bow. Just set the gate off by getting close, then wait, and when it's almost to the top, you go into the run position and run through just before it reaches the top.
Definitely got the prince of Persia animation in the running style...
They way their faces meld together when they kiss is super creepy.
Anybody else watching this at 2x speed?
Deserves a SuperCPU
epic introduction
Waaait. Hold on. The intro shown here does not play as it actually did. The text scroll ends too early and cuts to the cinematic but the text music is still playing over the cinematic. The cinematic has its own sounds.
still awesome graphics!
Wow, i remember playing that game for a long time. Only did beat the end boss a fiew times, and then died vs the princess because i Always entered the room in the fighting stance… I had most difficulties vs the bird. I see now how to beat it lol, just a bit to late. .. I was Young, like 13 or so :D
used to always play this on my Atari 1200xl
Imagin playing this game as a kid. Finally beating beating Akuma, and walk to Mariko instead of running. She will kick you… the end :P
Karate Action!
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Music/FX: 6.5/10
Playbility: 8.5/10
Halligen1972 rewind to 1985 and this was an 11. Which is probably how old you are and you have no idea how easy he just made that look. There was NOTHING like this back then!
I played this game back in the day and I remember if you approached the girl in fighting stance instead of running to her she would kick you in the face and kill you.
I probably had a bugged game, I remember at 11:48 I couldn't go accross the door, it repelled me as if there was an invisible door. Never understood why it kept me away.
Me too... tried all the moves and it was also in the reviews at the time about people not getting past the door.... I suspect it was a problem with the cassette version... in the US it seemed most people had disks.
Yeah i had the invisible door thing on my UK cassette version, never got passed it.
If you run to into the room with Akuma and you do not stop in time he punches you in the face and it is instadeath and you lose.
Gran recuerdo...!!!
30 years ago: beat the game.
30 years later: still don't know how to pronounce it.
CAR-uh-TECH-uh
looks nice. tried it for the first time the other day and unfortunately found it almost unplayable due to the speed of the game or lack there of.
superb minimalistic design would have been nice with smooth scrolling though ;-)
KarateKa is very good. Please play Kung-Fu-Ku next
Funny how we can sometimes recall very old very specific memories. In this case playing the game for a bit, thinking this is really garbage, and never playing it again. Awkward game speed, controls, limited moves, repetitive fights, ridiculous health bar, no real game progression.
@jblcn1042 Found that out the hard way. I was sooOOO pissed.
Do anyone know any other artistic video games like this ?
not sure.
Prince of Persia.
Project Firestart is definitely.
I would say Maniac Mansion, Zack McKracken, and Defender of the Crown are too.
How did they make Mt.Fuji seen through the moving windows,sprites?
The original Apple II version does that too so no sprites.
Seems to me the side scrolling is 8 pixels at a time, so it could just be replacing text characters. A nice detail is how the perspective on the window bars changes when they pass across the center of the screen.
you don't kick the princess???
This was hard as fuck
I don't really understand why they chose to make the game where the further you go the less health you have.
19:15 Hero gets the girl.
Reminds me a bit of Prince of Persia
I bought this for my C64 and I had to return it to Boots 4 times, it never did work
stupid boots. I never trust boots. I went in for some of those giant plasters and they didnt even have them in stock. Boots sucks.
I also had a problem with the cassette... the azimuth alignment on the cassette seemed to be out...
James Horner has been ripping off this game’s danger music sting for years
11:48 Why I Cannot Go Through That Door?
bug maybe, had same issue
11:48
NIEMALS einen Namen mit Artikel davor!!! "Der Schmu" - schlimm!
Karateka = Karate? xD
Karateka is a practitioner of karate like a mangaka is a practitioner of manga
@@calistnway random 8 year reply suddenly appeared! ;)
The Atari 8-bit version is slightly better than this version, with better graphics and game speed.
+infinitecanadian Yeah, the 64 version should have been tweaked for the slower hardware. It wasn't.
he should have done the gangnam style dance at the end to celebrate.
Karate=Kareteka XD
this c64 version is so painfully slow it's almost unplayable
MurderMuffin this was the shiz when it came out and the C64 was too! Are you 12??
Bigg TK Nuggs it was fun, and the animation was beyond amazing for the time. But the commodore version was sloooooow. I played the shit out of this game when it came out. But rye poor coding made is so slow and the controls were so unresponsive it was almost impossible.
The new generation remake sucks...
I broke my commodore because of this azzhole game..ripped the joystick right out of the port and ruined the port.
Cant understand why game is so slow. Would have been written in machine code for god sake
It's a port from Apple II. It doesn't take advantage of the video chip's capabilities. Everything is rendered by the CPU.
Apple II version was better than this.
Looks like a cheap Kung Fu movie 😂
Such a boring game. No use for half the moves. Same shit all the way. Fair animations though.
Game was v poor and 2slow. Got bad reviews too zzap