Karate Champ review: two joysticks and one clean point

Two karate fighters face each other on a mat, one in a white gi and one in a red gi. There is no health bar above them. There is a judge. Land one clean strike and he stops the fight and calls it: "Half point," or if the blow was perfect, "Full point." The first to two points wins.

Two joysticks instead of buttons

Karate Champ does not use punch and kick buttons. It uses two joysticks, and every move comes from how you push the pair of them together. It feels awkward for the first few rounds, and then it starts to feel like you are actually choosing techniques instead of pressing buttons.

The two-stick setup makes the fight slower and more deliberate than later fighting games. You pick one technique, commit to it, and live with it.

One clean strike

The scoring is what gives the game its tension. With no health bar to wear down, every exchange could end the round. So the fighters circle, step in and out, and wait. A good player controls distance and throws the one strike that will land, instead of the three that might. That is much closer to real point karate than to a brawl, and it rewards patience in a way few arcade games did.

In Karate Champ you did not wear your opponent down. You waited for one clean opening and took it.

Between matches come bonus rounds that are pure fun: dodge potted plants flying at your head, break a stack of boards, and stop a charging bull.

What it meant back then

In the United States Karate Champ was the highest-grossing arcade game of 1985, and it was everywhere: the mall arcade, the pizza place, the corner of a convenience store. This was the height of karate movies for American kids, and here was a machine that let you step onto the mat yourself. The version that came to America was Player vs Player, so you could fight your friend head to head, and the one-on-one fighting game genre was established right there, years before anyone called it that.

The judge's voice calling "Full point" was one of the great sounds of the era. Winning one felt like a black belt.

Playing it now

Karate Champ plays slower than modern fighting games, and that is the charm. Give the two-stick controls a few rounds, learn a few reliable techniques, and focus on distance. Against a friend, it becomes a tense little chess match, and you will still find yourself yelling at the judge.