036 · KARATE CHAMP

• OBJECTIVE
• Gameplay consists of a two dimensional fight between Karate characters wearing white and red gi, followed by various bonus rounds for the successful player. This pattern repeats itself in the next, more challenging round set against a new background. Unlike most later fighter-type games, there are no health bar or hit points. A hit successfully landed ends the round and earns the player or his opponent either one point or half point (along with a numeric score for the top ten but this has no effect on winning a match per se). The first to score two points is the winner. If the player loses a battle, the game ends.
• FIRST IMPRESSIONS
• GAMEPLAY
• CONTROLS
• Awful, hard to do special moves, poor hit detection
• ENEMIES
• POWER UPS
• DIFFICULTY
• SOUND
• No Music!
• STRAY THOUGHTS
• Publisher Data East brought suit against Epyx alleging copyright infringement for its game World Karate Championship. The case went to the ninth circuit court. It was held that the typical purchaser of the games would not find them substantially similar.[8]
• ESSENTIAL GAMES LIST
• SIGN OFF

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Hey, what's up guys? Before we start this week's episode, I just wanted to start, before we go into the game, I wanted to talk about Dante had wrote into us, a real person, not the guy from Devil May Cry. Sick name, bro. Dante wrote in to contact at NostalgiaCast.com, just like you can, and let us know that he beat Gumshoe on a legit NES. If you remember, that was a challenge I issued.

00:26 I issued that challenge on the Gumshoe episode. He said, hey guys, love the show. I am currently only listening to the episodes for games I've played, but I like the show enough that I'm thinking about getting caught up with some more older games so I can listen to those episodes too. I like this guy. He's pretty smart. Do it. And anyway, I just caught the Gumshoe episode, and Mike said he didn't believe anyone could beat Gumshoe legitimately. I happen to have a retro gaming blog where I talk about only those games I've beaten. And I'm willing to plug this blog in the show notes just because I think it's a really cool blog because here's the thing.

01:00 Dante's a collector, specifically of NES games, but the whole justification behind buying the NES games is he has to beat them. If he's going to spend the money on collecting these old NES games, he wants to beat them, and so therefore this blog is just essentially like him showing the internet that he's beating these games. And it's really cool to see these actual photos on a legit NES on a CRT of him beating Gumshoe and even goes on to further rub it into my face. I haven't listened to your Ghosts and Goblins episode yet, but just in case you challenged the listeners to beat that one twice to get the true ending, see? Dante knows. Here's my proof for that as well.

01:44 Did we challenge? I don't think I challenged. I just said for the three people that are listening to the podcast that have beaten. We did do a lot of grumbling. Yeah. So yeah, just that's really cool that Dante wrote into us. Thanks so much for writing in. And guys, write in more often because you'll be featured in the very front of the episode.

02:02 For everybody else who wanted to skip, I'm sure you noticed the other chapter markers by now, so just skip around wherever you like. I think it'd be really funny if you went between me saying, and now it's time for the essential games list and the beginning where I say, and welcome to NEStalgia. Because I'm about to say that in 30 seconds. Thanks. Bye. I'm going to write in. Put on your black belt. Sharpen your split second reflexes. Focus your concentration, karate champ.

02:42 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. What is that about, Sean? You're always doing, and I'm Sean. I said, I'm Sean. You're not want me. Yeah, that time you didn't. Oh, shoot. Now I just sound like I'm really aggressive. I'm just thinking of it again. What in God? You'll have to excuse me. I've been fighting people in a video game called Karate Champ for a while now, so I'm just very aggressive in general.

03:10 It's been a weird time since we started playing Karate Champ, hasn't it? You know, the world is different now because I've played Karate Champ, a Data East game. Did you play Karate Champ? Well, here's the thing. About Karate Champ. Yeah, you play Karate Champ if you can. You know, like, I made a reference to this last week when we were talking about an excellent, essential game called Gradius. And the thing that was really cool about that is that's a game where, like, you push buttons and things happen. Like in a rational, like, sequence way. Yeah, exactly.

03:47 You know, I'm cracking up. For the record, guys, we don't rehearse these episodes. I hope it doesn't come off that way either. Absolutely does not. Right. But we don't rehearse these episodes. So sometimes when I'm hearing these guys' thoughts, I realize what they're saying for, like, the very first time. And, like, Joe saying in the right direction. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We're explaining that. We're explaining that. You know, the only thing that you make a successful strike is given a point.

04:37 And then you have to get... It stops and resets. Yeah, stops and resets. Which is like a real karate strike. Well, yeah, in that way, it's a sports simulator. Exactly. Yeah, in that way, Sean. Don't get too excited. In that way. Yeah. No, I'm just saying, you're ready to say it's a sports game and you're getting excited. No, I'm not. You know, so that means that there are no health bar. There's no hit points. The only thing you need to do is successfully land a hit. And then you, once you get, like, enough points, you beat the player and then you go to another person who looks exactly the same. And then you go to another person who looks exactly the same. But the environments change up quite nicely.

05:11 There's quite a bit of... They're cute, aren't they? ...of design in these environments. I think I liked the palm trees and the orange sunset. My favorite background is the volcano. Yeah, well, screw the volcano. The volcano, I don't know. Yeah, there's a...

05:27 Well, like, here's the thing. The volcano's over to the right. It's, like, just kind of, like, out... Like, I don't know if it's a window or if this is just like... No, you're kind of like you're in front of a building and then there's a volcano in the background. Okay, maybe it's not a volcano. Maybe it's Mount Everest. But the idea... Mount Everest. Yeah. Okay. It was a volcano to me and, of course, that's a throwback to Gradius because Joe hated the volcano. I actually was going to make a joke about that before I realized that you were making a joke about that. Yeah, yeah. Well, making a joke or just being an idiot, you decide.

05:56 I definitely thought it was a volcano until Sean gave me, like, a... Don't do that. Like, it's not a volcano. Sean, your favorite background. It was, uh... In the first place that you fight, you are sort of on this cliff outcropping that makes it really uncomfortable. Like, it looks like you can fall off at any moment. But, of course, that's not a feature. And it's probably, uh, for the best that you can't fall off. But it looks cool. It's fine. This game is terrible, but it looks fine. I probably would have jumped off if it was an action. Yeah, I would have jumped off the cliff. All right, now that we know our favorite backgrounds, I think we can just jump right into the essential games list.

06:38 Uh, I probably even played the music there for fun. But no, we're not doing that yet. Uh, let's get first impressions if we haven't, like, led you on enough already. Uh, Joe, besides your favorite background, how else did you feel about this game? Um, so, my first match, I tried to change up my moves a little bit. I didn't really do anything.

06:57 And sometimes, like, a lot of the time, if I tried to change up the move, I would just kick... I would do a back kick, even though my opponent was in front of me. I couldn't control which direction I was kicking, which is why... You must have hit the B button. Yes. The B button only kicks backwards. It only attacks backwards, if you can believe it. But then, like, the A button sometimes punches, sometimes kicks. I guess it depends on how close you are. Well, it's also, you know, a directional input.

07:22 Is it with the direction? Yeah, they're combo moves, in a way. I don't even think I realized that. Well, you're... The thing is, though, that that is a... It's a system that just doesn't work. Right. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's supposed to be a directional thing, but it doesn't always guarantee. For me, it was almost exclusively kicks, which would have been great if I even understood how I was making contact...

07:43 ...against the other player. Well, sometimes you just don't. Yeah, that was my other initial thing, was that it, um... I couldn't tell what was determining if I hit them or not. Apparently, in the manual, uh, if you don't hold the button down long enough, you will just fail your move. And it'll... it won't count as anything. Or it'll count as a block on their behalf. Um, but... All that aside, um, this game... Like, whether you learn the rules and learn the moves or not, it... it doesn't matter, because it... Like, there's no hit detection.

08:18 Um, I feel like our... Like, me and the opponent's sprites would just be overlapping for several seconds, and then we'd be facing in opposite directions, and hitting and flailing, and nothing would happen. Um, so whether you know what you're supposed to do or not, that's not what's going to happen. But did you notice that when you were facing in opposite directions, the opponent was able to turn and hit you?

08:41 Yeah. I mean, I couldn't figure out how to do that. Uh, that's a round kick, Joe. No, but I'm... no, I'm saying, actually, he would be facing me, but I would be still in my back turn facing the way I was at the beginning. Oh, and he would... He would be facing me and just be doing regular punches and kicks. Well, Joe, in karate, it's disrespectful to turn and face your opponent.

08:58 Everyone's back to back. But I think it's also disrespectful to hit your opponent in the back of the head. Like, and, uh, I also noticed at one point I just left the menu screen on too long, and you go to the little demo, and it plays, you know, the demo plays for you. And the guy in the white gi in the demo also couldn't figure out how to kick in the right direction.

09:19 Like, several times he was just kicking back. Like, even the guy demoing the game didn't know how to play the game. You think that's... wait, hold on. Wait. Do you think that, like, there's a guy that, like, recorded his own play? The guy on screen. There's a guy on screen. Okay. He's the demo guy. Yeah. And he's kicking... Oh, okay. Okay. He's kicking in the wrong direction. The guy who's trying to show you this is what the game could be like shows you exactly what the game could be like. Yeah, exactly. Your character while the computer's controlling it.

09:45 Um, Sean, do you have any different first impressions? I think I turned that into a combination first impression there. Okay. Uh, my first impressions was cause I, like, should I, should I look at a manual? Like, like, I really just wasn't even sure if I was playing a game or if, like, I was just part of, like, one of those, like, experiences where you're just learning that, like, you know, in life it's better not to fight.

10:10 Like, it's better to just be the calm one, stay still, like, let your opponent who's bullying you take the match. They win the match, but you win in life, you know? That's right. So I went to the manual, and, uh, there I found out that there's, like, a billion moves. Yeah. Like, there's so many different moves because it's, like, which way you move your joystick. If you don't move your joystick at all and you just hit, like, A. If you don't move your joystick and you hit B. Or if you hit A and B at the same time. Something that, by the way, we haven't seen yet. So that's kind of cool.

10:39 Yeah. Like, the idea of hitting two buttons at once to get a move to happen. In theory. Uh, if it ever worked. Yeah. I, I really thought I was, like, dyslexic. Because I'm looking at the manual and I'm trying to do these inputs. And still, at best, I'm doing kicks that turn me the other way. I got A, B was roundhouse kick, right? I think that was really the only one. Yeah, A, B was round kick. Yeah. I think some of them have to do with, like, the proximity to the player, to your opponent.

11:08 So sometimes. The manual doesn't mention that. Really? Just throwing that out there. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying, like, for me. I guess I'm, maybe I'm just prescribing logic where none exists. Yeah. Well, I mean, sometimes, like, A, B, though, can do, like, A plus B can do other things, too. Like, you know, like a low punch or something like that. If you're, like, squatting down. Yeah. You know, like, you can kind of do, like, a below the belt punch, which is weird.

11:33 I don't think that's allowed in karate either. And the second time that I, like, the first time I lost, second time I started over and I played, and I just, every single round would take, like, the exact amount of steps forward, one punch, and, like, most of the time that would hit them. Like, there was no reason for me to do anything else but that. And, like, it would hit, like, a little more than half the time, so I won.

11:55 It's sad, though, that, like, you know, and they're two different games. This is, like, a fighting game in a weird way, like how Urban Champion is kind of a fighting game. But, like, Kung Fu, like, that gets, that has just almost as many options of, like, what you can do, right? Right. With, like, the high kick, the sweeping kick, the punch and the punch down below, like the squat punch. Right. Jump kick. Yeah, the jump kick, all that stuff. Like, all the different moves. And for the most part, they detect okay. Yeah. And it feels great, too. You know, and it feels good when you're doing it.

12:25 Right, right, right. And it's fast. It's interesting. Here, it's like, you know, I always just felt like I was one step behind the enemy, even from the very beginning of the game. Like, I just feel like my hits just, either the hit boxes are awful or the hit detection is awful. Like, one of those two things must be true because you can't suck at a game from the very beginning. You know, like, you can't, like, you know, the first time you boot up a game and, like, just try it out. You can't, you can't just be so awful that, like, it's the equivalent of, like, getting to Super Mario 64 and the first thing you do, right, you get into the courtyard, you don't even enter the castle yet. Just drown. You just go to the water.

13:02 You drown yourself because Mario doesn't sink. You just go down to the water and drown yourself. You know, like, that would be, like, the equivalent for what this is in Karate Champ, but it happens. Yeah. Um, I think that, uh, it has a, let me just, let's turn it around a little bit. Sure. Turn it around for me. I have one happy thought about this game. This game looks alright. We talked about the backgrounds. Okay, that's my happy thought. It's got some really good, uh, as far as, um, we've seen so far on the NES, some, some good, like, voice clips.

13:35 Oh, that was cool. Yeah. I actually didn't mind that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do like that. I forgot all about that, but that was some cool voice synthesis. It's got some presentational polish. Oh, yeah, because he says, um, ready, begin, or something every time. And at first I was impressed until he says that every one second.

13:52 Yeah. Um, and I think that, and again, this is not giving an excuse for anything in this game, but I think that maybe if they were going for, cause they are actually using the rules of like competitive karate as far as I know, um, to, to allow the moves to carry a certain weight, maybe that's what we're seeing as, um, as just sluggishness. Uh, I, I, I can see where they might've been going with that idea, but you need the basics of like fundamental spatial play for that to work. And I think the other thing they need for that to work is a block.

14:31 Cause if, if it's, if there's no way to punch in the face is a, is a point, but there's no way to guard against that. It's just whoever punches, whoever punches first. It's weird that there's no block. Well, I guess you don't need one if half the moves don't actually, like, That's true. There was a lot of times, even my enemy, I was like, I thought like for sure he had, uh, an enemy, my opponent. Like, that's serious. Um, my, my arch nemesis. My arch nemesis would just hit me and it wouldn't work for him either. So I was like, ah, how's it feel now? Like you are the game. You know, like you're the game and it's not even working out for you.

15:37 also did we talk about uh i just haven't about anything i have in my notes after i played the first round then a flower vase slid into frame and knocked me over yeah now i'm in a desert

15:50 it's literally just like look out for that flower oh you got hit by the flower that is no warning poetic now i'm in a desert you know what but you know what doesn't that also happen an urban champion that woman like drops a flower pot it's like a hazard this is also like in context like there's a woman standing out her window what happens in this game is you have won you have won the match you should be celebrating somebody throws a flower pot at you from off screen i don't know why they're

16:16 out there you're out in the middle of nowhere it's standard to throw flowers not with the and if you dodge the first one they will throw another going you're supposed to dodge or you can punch them or kick them do you get extra points i guess no you can't punch or kick them punch and kick them really that's what i was doing you were breaking them break them but it's the same as when

16:38 you fight the guy it has to be exactly the right distance away from you or else it'll hit you um i just love the idea that like maybe that is something like i mean joe i think you're the only one who's actually done any karate right i mean yeah well i won a match no no no sorry in real life i did but there were no flower vases i'd like the idea of you being challenged by someone in real

16:59 life and you just considered that like all right this is my match i've never done any karate but someone's like i challenge you to a sparring match yeah yeah uh but no so you're the only one with real karate experience has anyone ever thrown a vase at someone like not to my knowledge but you know we were we were on an amateur level so i'm sorry uh mike just glared at me through the glare i was

17:21 trying to like yeah yeah no you were helping ease the tensions some people say vase other people say vase it's like the same thing it's vase is like french like face yeah vase as if uh you're mike no visage is like that's that's a face no no yeah what yeah like your visage yes you know maybe they weren't vases maybe they were just two people looking at each other that could be maybe it was one of those

17:47 uh okay joe thanks for making me laugh uh there's no sound in this game like like other than those voices like there's no music right which killed me because in the demo the the um just the menu music plays and it's kind of intense and i'm like i kind of wish this music was somewhere else in the game maybe not during the match but like they have like fanfares yeah um but like right or am i

18:09 misremembering no i'm i'm pretty sure i guess what i meant and like i can understand you know it's like it's realistic it's gritty you know it's like it's an nes game it's an nes game calm down like just add i'm saying they need to add something here okay we're getting to an underlying problem here though too because like you know for the record the enemies uh there's only one and it's the same guy

18:30 in the same outfit same colored outfit every single time like you know like there's no variety really here like yes the variety is the stages which we talked about right off the bat our favorite we keep coming back to it yeah no no i'm just saying like like we talked about that right off the bat everything since then has been downhill and for the most part pretty bad right we're getting to the problem it's it's the developer it's data east yeah i i think they're uh well what's a modern day

18:59 equivalent to them right now um who just makes nothing but terrible games and uh you can't even make that joke you know like you could insert your own you know your own favorite company to talk about like yeah you know like it's like not true nobody's making games on that level true who made bubzy 3d yeah you know like them actually i think they're making a very competent game right now though that

19:20 we got shown at e3 uh anyway that's not the point data east uh you know like the only other game we've seen from them so far is tag team wrestling oh no yeah so they remember that okay but we're gonna see more garbage from them like forever like that's just like their thing their style is just making these games like remember tag team wrestling the game where like i forget which one it is between that and muscle well i mean tag teams with all the muscles like the chibi style characters tag team

19:51 wrestling was like the actual people okay and then you would grapple them and then press b remember you would press b like a certain amount of times to select your grapple move that is you know like that level of coherency translates over to karate champ in the sense of like how the controls work here it's the shared universe right where we're the guy from the the guys from tag team wrestling abandoned

20:16 wrestling and moved on to karate just become the uh the the ref there or whatever you call that okay i was gonna say that that's gonna be hard to explain the shared data east universe because the next game that's coming from them is burger time why can't you okay burgers and burgers in this universe i don't think you guys have played burger time yet it's really it's like giant burgers being assembled is like

20:40 the the theme of that cloudy with a chance of meatballs looking forward to it cloudy with a chance of meatballs uh i'd rather play the nes cloudy with a chance of meatballs that doesn't exist but i'd rather play that game than this one i'm not a fan no all right um any stray thoughts guys i thought the pause sound was very intense like it was i'm serious that's a note i have that written down like that's how

21:07 much there is to talk joe takes the best notes and one day we'll just scan them all and like release them in a pdf um no it was i can't try to remember how it went it was like very very intense i don't know you don't even remember how it went i don't even think i even paused it was like very like did you realize you paused like i feel like a lot of nes games have that same like right which i forgot

21:31 to talk about in our last episode of gradius but the pause sound was very familiar to me which i think was one of those ones that you guys we're just gonna talk about great i love no no no not even no it's not funny that you're talking about gradius here because i mean i'd love to get to talk about gradius it's funny that you have secretly like it was one thing to talk about the pause menu sound in this specific game but you've been thinking about pause menu sounds in other games too

21:54 you're like you're like well you know like this one actually is really good compared to other ones because some of the other ones are like familiar and sound similar this was very that's the essential games list now let's move on to the pause sounds yeah all right joe it's joe's pause sound you guys know how this works we look at pause sounds not by 1986 standards but by how games pause today all right and chris play it now

22:20 uh anyway yeah people like chris who's that that's our audio engineer guy i have one stray thought it's not a thought i ever had just something you know in my research that i noticed um data east uh got a lawsuit against them for this game by epics epyx uh epyx epics alleged copyright infringement on data east um for its game world karate championship okay they said that the games were too similar okay i wouldn't brag about that

22:59 it's like we don't want to call that the judge actually kind of says something similar okay it goes to the ninth circuit court and then uh basically what the judge says is that the typical purchaser purchaser of these games would not find them substantially substantially similar like they're just not like yeah they might be named similarly but like a purchaser would be able to understand

23:22 that like one is playable and the other one the demo doesn't even well i mean all jokes aside like that actually probably establishes a lot of precedent when it comes to like like games of a certain genre wouldn't it i think that's like maybe why like certain and you know like mobile games are able to just like basically like call themselves as similar as they can like other things exactly like any like

23:46 uh what do they call them like lineup threes or like grand theft mobile that oh like like like instead of grand theft auto or like you know grand theft moto but not even just in this in that like uh that overt sense of just obviously trying to get you to misclick on something sure but even games that have very similar mechanics like a candy crush and whatever else is out there like that i think i think most of those though that i think of is like oh wow that game exists too it's

24:16 like turns out that they're all owned by those guys like give like candy crush and then you also have like some soda saga game or something like that yeah they're the same you know what i mean you know i know you know what i did i don't know what anybody means anymore karate champ has entered my life i don't feel like a champion playing this game can we go home we can go home after we do the essential games list

24:40 all right guys the essential games list i vote no since we were talking about my notes i also vote no okay since we were talking about my notes i just want to say i wrote this in my notes and i didn't

24:52 have i didn't have any like context to it i just wrote i'm starting to feel like i've had enough and that's it i didn't say like at this point i was just like 3 a.m like are you drunk it was pretty late but i was just like i'm looking at this now i'm like i didn't even say why i just want the audience to know that i'm starting to feel like i've had enough not essential thank you joe but uh you forgot to mention to the audience that right above that it says day 43 it's tasty uh i'll elaborate on

25:23 my no a little bit here the reason why i voted no on this game is because generally for me for a game to be considered essential you have to like have a sense of like gameplay and like player choice and like you know correspondence to expectations versus reality and when i hit the punch button i'm expecting a punch and when the and if the punch does come out like it's supposed to which which could happen

25:52 if it hits the prior if it hits the other person in the face i'm expecting that to be a hit but if it doesn't detect that that's a hit and then my opponent does immediately the same thing and it hits me and he gets a point well he's just a jackass you know like that's not fun or like like one of you said earlier you like stand like overlapping each other for a while and just both punch for a while and i

26:15 want i want everyone to understand that that wasn't just like an anecdote of how mike viewed this game or or just his experience and it may be different for you that is how every match goes and that is just how every match will go as it were before so it will be again time is a flat circle time is a flat circle and uh speaking of time that's all the time we have for this episode of nostalgia join us next

26:45 time for the best of 1986 party you yeah joe would like to call it 1985 but we're on 1986 now guys uh you know what's something cool about this i'm sure you guys have seen the best of 1985 episode it's like weird that we're already doing best of 86 these aren't going to come up as often after a while but i think even 87 comes up fast too but fast there's 52 yeah i just mean like fast-ish compared

27:10 to like 88 which then gets like 100 plus games but what's fun about these is like you know we really get to do like a retrospective on the entire thing so even if you listen to every single episode that we've done so far and you think well i've heard all the games of 86 i don't need to do the recap it's really just like a fun episode where we really look at all the games together like synonymously and think about like you know what is like the word yeah what is the word there

27:39 synonymously synonymously right like i don't know synonymous i don't know what you're even trying to say synonymously like if something's synonymous with something else it's like it's a synonym

27:48 it's yeah oh like like you know like how all the games go together yes cinnamon yeah i guess but you yeah i think synonymously like synonymously we don't have no i'm not even talking i'm not even saying that you're mispronouncing it i'm just like all the games together synonymously that's that's the what do you know what i don't know if that i don't know if that context makes sense i don't know it's all the games synonymously if you mean like they're interchangeable or they're like i don't mean it's a changeable i mean like we're talking about them all at once like like we're

28:20 talking about collectively i'm not sure i'm not sure yeah like collectively because i don't think that's anonymous all right fair enough guys now that you've joined us for a journey on the dictionary um look it up and let us know yeah look it up let me know your thoughts oh are we recording through the way you let you the way you let me know your thoughts on whether i was right or sean was right or maybe there are no winners in a game like karate champ you could let us know by going

28:46 to contact at nostalgiacast.com you just email us right there that's the email address and you say like hey mike you know what actually i'm really sick and tired of listening to your episodes they're really poorly thought out you guys don't really say much you ramble on for a while but if joe could send me a text every week with his thoughts about the pause sound for each game i would gladly listen to that maybe joe will do an article about his favorite pause sounds because we do articles on nostalgiacast.com we also do uh like in-depth reviews of every single game and that's also

29:21 where the show notes live but you know all this by now because you're a loyal fan who hit the subscribe button hit that subscribe button on their podcast app or wherever those into it or if you want me to personally email you a download link every single time you want to hear this i'll do it just email me please i'm very lonely it's um nine o'clock on a saturday you know in the regular crowd is it no that's not how this billy joel song goes anyway that's the point of the episode we'll get to the best of 1986 episode next week so join us then ciao ciao baby and i'm joe Thank you.