A Look At International Karate+
Foreword: a few weeks ago a good friend of mine pointed me toward a fairly new
Ladies and gentlemen, hats off! International Karate Plus, IK+ for the friends, it’s an absolute masterpiece. It is the typical game that never disappoints you. Every once in a while, year after year, I get back to it for a quick match and every time it does impress me for the way it has been coded. Let’s take a close look at it to discover why. The game concept in itself is rather simplistic: 3 martial artists challenge each other in a duel based on kicks, punches, sweeps and the likes.
Depending on precision and strenght of the move we will be awarded 1 or 2 points. The first player reaching 6 point wins the match and access the new level (together with the second one) while the third one is forced to undergo additional heavy traning by Master Kawasaki-san (a clearly invented name). If you happen to be such player, you will be kicked out from the tournament and you’ll have to start over from the White Belt. Every few levels you will enter a minigame, where using a shield you have to deflect objects thrown at you (boing balls, bombs and … human heads) for additional score.
Like in real life, and following the best Karate tradition, your progress will be measured upon reaching different levels (colored belts): yellow, green, purple and brown all the way up to a well deserved Black Belt. Even after all these years the software impresses for its running speed, pixel-perfect collisions and superd smoothness: an erratic positioning on the field can make the difference between victory and failure, resulting in a blank stroke and the subsequent opponent response.
IK+ is obviously the sequel for International Karate, with which it shares part of the
So, having verified that playability was (and still is) over the top, what about the graphics and sound compartments? Speaking about the Amiga version we can safely say that the game didn’t use much of its superior qualities: even though really pleasant looking, it only sports a single background. As far as the sound goes, we are here dealing with a superb soundtrack that I keep listening to, to the point that I sometimes fire up the game only to listen to the tracks.
Despite the single backdrop, IK+ is still a must-play, and if you closely look at it you’ll find out that the coder did have fun by inserting “hidden features”: did you notice Pacman. And the spider? And the submarine?
Have fun with IK+: it’s a blast!
(Text by Francesco, translation by g0blin, box shot by ToAks)
Not a word about the best feature in the game? 😀 – PRESS T on the keyboard haha. love that one.
a few fun facts that not many know out there, IK+ was ported to PS1 and PS2, there are unofficial versions for it on the Saturn and Jaguar too.
There was a total of 8 different releases for the Amiga platform of IK+, 2 of them are ultra rare thanks to Mark Cale’s (?) ways of limiting stock availability.
Thanks for your report. Always on the spot.?
This game is top 10 most playable on Amiga PC for me. I used to have a ton of fun playing doubles. There is an option I believe for three players, although we never had that much friends over and enough foresight to think of that one.
You can watch a modern take on International Karate + on the Amiga 500.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIjDDl5HGNQ