"China Warrior" - Turbografx-16/PC-Engine

AKA - "The Kung Fu" - THE 功夫

----- Introduction -----

I really wouldn't have guessed it by looking, but this game was made by Hudson Soft. It's also apparently enough of a classic to have been re-released numerous times in Japan. I was kind of surprised to learn that it came out here at all, even if it did take 2 years after the release.

Apparently the story here is that you play as a martial artist named Wang (heh, classic) and his ambition is to climb up a big castle and fight some guy who's labeled The Dark Emperor, for... reasons. I don't know what the reasons are, but presumably just because he's bad and Wang is a good guy.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, the character size on the screen was a selling point for the game, but it earns little respect today and has been made fun of on shows dedicated to talking about the worst games ever made, etc.

A fun fact-- the show I've mentioned before, High-Score Girl, shows it off as one of the great successes of the PC-Engine, in the context of the early '90s.

Let's just see how we feel about it, shall we?

I'm trying to understand why they needed to flip the art and remove the white banner.

----- Playthrough -----

The main gameplay loop of China Warrior is pretty straight forward. It's sort of like a beat 'em up on rails. Your character is always walking to the right, and you can walk left and right up to about half the screen-- that's the amount of freedom your Wang is permitted (heheh, classic).

While he's on his great quest to walk to the right across all of China, his enemies will be throwing bowls at him. And sticks. And fireballs. And sometimes just walking directly into him. Really just the regular slew of 1980's video-game enemy tricks.

Suck tiny bird, Bruce Lee wannabe!

By the way I just want to point out that the first time I saw this expression I laughed every single time I saw it for the next, like, three minutes.

The header image for the Wikipedia article on "anger".

Eventually once you get tired of walking to the right, you'll stop on a little peninsula and fight this guy in camo. I don't know if you get other bosses in later levels, this game is really hard) but this is the boss I got two levels in a row.

The ultimate enemy of Chinese kung fu is this bald American guy with a moustache.

These fights are hard as 7 AM dick at first and Amerimoustache-guy goes really heavy on just blocking everything you throw out all the time.

I looked at a longplay of the game to see how the rest of the game goes, and it seems like it follows this general pattern of walking through the levels hitting flying stuff and fighting a guy at the end, and it doesn't seem like the boss fights vary that much, so I feel safe ending my playthrough here and saying I've mostly experienced what's on offer.

----- Review -----

I've decided to slightly condense this section to save some space/not bore you to death.

Innovation:

Does the game show anything not yet seen on this system/ever before?

Well, this isn't our first side-scrolling adventure game now that we've played Bikkuriman World, and I think it's safe to say this game doesn't really compare with that as far as gameplay, anyway. On the other hand, I guess this is the first PC-Engine game we've played with big, detailed sprites. Is that an innovation...?

-----

Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

I'd say it's pretty intuitive. You're just walking to the right and hitting a kick and a punch button, I think even a kid can probably get it pretty quick.

-----

Gameplay / Difficulty: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

The game is pretty freaking difficult, however it does have some reward loops for doing riskier maneuvers which are kind of fun. It's cool when you get rewarded with extra life because you took a chance to kick a bunch of objects out of the air in a row, for instance. The boss I fought was pretty tough and seemed to lack much of a wind-up or discernible pattern to conquer, it seemed to mostly just be walking in and out and punching. That's not super fun or rewarding, but I guess it's better than nothing.

-----

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

It looks like there's about 4-5 stages, according to the longplay, and considering how hard the game is I imagine you'll be playing it a fair bit if you want to see the ending. So there's a decent amount of length here, but not much depth.

I have to start over from the beginning!?

-----

Design: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

I have a feeling the whole purpose of this game was to display the graphical power of the PC-Engine in the late 80s to put it a head and shoulders above the competition, not really to make a fun game. On that note, the sprites look pretty good and certainly very detailed, as well as the backgrounds. The sound is fine, and I like the music as well.

-----

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

I mean, not really. I do like walking to the right and hitting things, and I like cheesy kung-fu movies, but this game doesn't really capture either of those things in the finest way I've ever seen. It's an entertaining thing to play for a few minutes, but I don't really want to rep it.

-----

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

I would say probably not. There are other games that are very much in this vein that are equally/more fun, I think this game is just meant to show you how cool the PC-Engine is, and what it's capable of graphically. You're unlikely to be impressed by this in 2019, so I'd say it's okay to skip it.

-----