Karate Champ

[Pete]

Does anyone remember Karate Champ? I remember playing this game but can’t recall if it was on the arcade or on my NES.

 

[Manny]

Karate Do is the Japanese name for Karate Champ was simple but fun game.

Using two joysticks, players can execute 24 moves. Gameplay consists of a two dimensional fight between the first karateka wearing a white gi who is controlled by player one and the second karateka wearing a red gi who is controlled by either player two or the CPU, followed by various bonus rounds for the successful player. This pattern repeats itself in the next, more challenging round set against a new background, the first level being a dojo and all following levels taking place at the same tournament stadium.

Unlike most later fighting games, there is no health bar or hit point system. A hit successfully landed ends the round and earns the hitter either one point or half point (along with a numeric score for the top ten, but this has no effect on winning a match). The first to score two points is the winner. If the player loses a battle, the game ends. The game features digitized speech for the judge to call out such phrases as "Fight!" or "Winner!". The speech is in Japanese in the original version.