Description
The evil Akuma has destroyed the protagonist's homeland, killed many of his friends and kidnapped the princess Mariko. Fortunately, the hero is skilled in martial arts, so his inevitable quest to reach Akuma's palace and rescue Mariko has a chance of success.
Karateka is viewed from the side and features a succession of increasingly difficult opponents. Three types of punches and kicks are available to both the player character and his foes, differentiated by their height (low, medium, and high). The protagonist has a health bar, which refills itself gradually when he stands still.
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Trivia
Akuma
"Akuma'", the name of the evil warlord in
Karateka (and many other games featuring a Japanese bad guy), is a Japanese word that roughly means 'devil'.
Akuma Castle
The Akuma Castle that appears at the beginning, seems to be inspired by the "Himeji Castle" that really exists in Japan, near Kyoto. Search on Google or Altavista Image Search for "Himeji Castle" and you'll find pictures of the real castle.
Apple II version
The Apple II version of
Karateka came on one single-sided floppy disk. However, by booting
Karateka up on the opposite side (Side Two) - the game would still load, but now the game was upside down. A visual gag on the part of someone at Brøderbund most likely.
Atari 7800 version
For the Atari 7800 version of
Karateka, the end label on the cartridge was unusual in that it featured square corners instead of the usual rounded corners. This was one of the only (if not the only) games to do so.
Cliff
It is possible to fall off the edge of the cliff in the first scene if you back into it.
Engine
The game's engine would be later used in
Prince of Persia.
Text files
Most of
Karateka on the PC is made of editable text files. You can modify the game by changing the coordinates in the language files.
Title
"Karateka" means a practitioner of karate.
Awards
- Happy Computer
- Issue 02/1986 - #10 Best Game in 1985 (Readers' Vote)
Information als contributed by
Coltrane,
James1,
Macintrash,
Maw,
Michael Palomino,
Ray Soderlund and
Servo
