Kung-Fu Master (computer game)

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Kung Fu Master
Kung-Fu Master Logo.svg
Studio Irem
Publisher Irem, Data East
Senior Developer unknown
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 December 1984
genre Side scrolling beat 'em up
Game mode up to 2 players in turns
control 4-way joystick ; 2 buttons
casing Standard, mini and cocktail
Arcade system Irem M-62
monitor Raster resolution 256 × 256 (4: 3 horizontal), color palette: 512
information First horizontal beat 'em up
Arcade machine Kung-Fu Master
Title logo in arcade game
Letter text of the arcade game after inserting a coin. In the original graphic there are hands on the left and right, cracks above and below, and a black frame.
Character Thomas on a facade in Hong Kong
A South Korean temple similar to the one in the game. The horizontal perspective corresponds to the right, rear part. As in the game, there is a green roof and red columns that appear regularly.

Kung-Fu Master ( Japaneseス パ ル タ ン X, Spartan X ) is an arcade game that was developed in 1984 by the Japanese Irem Corporation . It was the first scrolling beat 'em up game and is often cited as an inspiration for later genre successes like Double Dragon . In the US, it was under license from Inc. Data East USA, sold. Various ports for the most common home computers followed, for example the C64 .

Kung-Fu Master is considered to be one of the most famous Kung-Fu games of the time. It was also quite difficult because it required very good responsiveness. You could hit and jump with your hands and feet; it includes five levels .

The game is based on the Bruce Lee film " My Last Battle " ( Game of Death 1973/78), but was marketed in 1984 together with the Jackie Chan film Kwai tsan tseh (German title: Powerman ) and adapted to this. In Japan, film and games are called "Spartan X" .

There are several games called Spartan X, Kung Fu and Kung-Fu Master, which have a different gameplay and vice versa (see the section on ports). For the home computer system MSX or Spectravideo , which was widespread at the time, especially in Japan, several of these games were published from 1983 onwards. There is also a version with a plot from the Jackie Chan film.

The last official part of the series appeared in 1991, but other compilations exist, similar games e.g. B. Jackie-Chan licensed games and fan projects. The last time a Windows version was programmed in 2009, an unofficial successor to the NES version.

Course of the game

In the guise of the protagonist Thomas , the player must save his girlfriend, who was kidnapped by the villain Mr. X. At the beginning of the game, Thomas holds a letter from the kidnappers in his hands. The action of the game takes place in a multi-story pagoda .

The player looks at the two-dimensionally represented events from a side perspective; the character runs on the screen from right to left (in even levels in the opposite direction); it is always in the same place on the screen while the game environment scrolls to the right or left . Opponents come from both sides who want to clasp Thomas from both sides and consume his life points (this is shown as a bar at the top of the picture); To shake it off, the player must quickly move the joystick left and right. There are also knife throwers who throw their weapons at varying heights and which the character can avoid by crouching or jumping. In the following levels , clay jugs and balls fall from the ceiling, from which snakes and fire-breathing dragons come, as well as exploding confetti balls; in the later course (level 4) killer bees come out of their combs and attack Thomas. Dwarves do somersaults and try to hit the pawn on the head.

Each level represents one floor of the pagoda and is limited in time. At the end of each floor there are bosses . If you kill them, you can go up the stairs to the next floor. After defeating the last boss in the fifth game segment, the game starts again on a higher level of difficulty. You receive a dragon symbol when you have completed the five floors for the first time. The number of dragon symbols increases to three (at the beginning of the fourth round) and starts flashing from the fifth round.

Boss

  • Level 1: stick fighter
  • Level 2: Boomerang Thrower
  • Level 3: Giant (figure is modeled after basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar )
  • Level 4: magician
  • Level 5: Mr. X, behind to the left is Silvia tied to the chair

The 5 floors mark the 5 different fighting styles. The top one says “ Jeet Kune Do ”. Mr. X wears the same yellow suit as Bruce Lee. So he practically fights against himself.

control

The game is operated with a joystick and two buttons. The playing figure can distribute kicks or blows both standing, jumping and crouching.

music

The 3-part background melody of the AY-3-8910 runs in an endless loop. There are also melodies for the beginning and end of the game and the end of a section of the game.

Implementations / platforms

Arcade hardware

  • Original arcade version (1984) Irem M-62 hardware (3 PCBs), Data East devices partly bear the manufacturer name Nihon Bussan / AV Japan
  • Spartan-X ditto, with Japanese text
  • The game also appeared as Kung Fu for the PlayChoice 10 Arcade system (1985).
  • Kung Fu Hero (unknown maker) Arcade
  • two more bootlegs (arcade)

Ports

The table contains both original arcade adaptations and games of the same name with different gameplay and different titles with identical or very similar gameplay. Instructions can be found at the end of the table.

year like Irem platform Surname Original name developer Publisher Color palette Disk particularities source
1983 MSX ( Spectravideo ) Kung Fu Master ク ン フ ー マ ス タ ー ASCII Mass Tael Ltd. 16 cassette scrolling vertically
1984 x Arcade Spartan X / Kung-Fu Master ス パ ル タ ン X Irem Irem, Data East 512 ROMs Original arcade version
1984 ZX Spectrum Kung fu Kung fu Bug byte Bug byte 8th cassette Duel
1984 x Atari 2600 / VCS Kung Fu Master Kung Fu Master Activision Activision, HES 128 Cartridge 4 publications, one in 1987
1985 MSX Spartan X ス パ ル タ ン X Pony Canyon Pony Canyon 16 cassette Multigenre based on Powerman film
1985 x Arcade / PlayChoice-10 Kung fu カ ン フ ー Irem Nintendo 52 ROMs カ ン ゲ ・ フ ー (KLOV), second monitor
1985 x NES Kung fu カ ン フ ー Nintendo Nintendo 52 Cartridge like PlayChoice, without a second monitor
1985 x MSX Kung-fu acho / Seiken acho / Irem Karate 聖 拳 ア チ ョ ー Irem, ASCII Irem / ASCII, Clover (Korea, 1987) 16 Cartridge
1985 x C64 Kung Fu Master Kung Fu Master Berkeley Softworks US gold , HES 16 Cassette, floppy disk
1985 x Apple II e Kung Fu Master Kung Fu Master Berkeley Softworks Data East 8th diskette Back of the C64 disk
1985 x SG-1000 Dragon Wang ド ラ ゴ ン ワ ン Sega Sega 16 Cartridge Holes in ceilings instead of stairs
1985 Epoch Cassette Vision (Nekketsu) Kung-Fu Road 熱血 カ ン フ ー ロ ー ド Epoch Yeno / epoch 16 Cartridge partly similar, inside and out
1986 x ZX Spectrum 48K Kung Fu Master Kung Fu Master US gold US gold 8th cassette
1986 x Amstrad CPC Kung Fu Master Kung Fu Master Choice software US gold 16 cassette Elevator instead of stairs
1986 Sega Master System Black Belt / Hokuto no Ken 北斗 の 拳 Sega Sega 64 Cartridge partly similar, indexed
1989 x Atari 7800 Kung Fu Master Kung Fu Master Absolute entertainment HES 128 Cartridge
1990 Game Boy Kung Fu Master Spartan X Irem Nintendo 4th Cartridge 4 gray levels on original GB
1990 NES Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu ジ ャ ッ キ ー チ ェ ン Now Productions Hudson Soft 52 Cartridge
1991 NES Spartan X 2 ス パ ル タ ン X 2 Irem Irem 52 Cartridge
1995 Arcade The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan / Fists of Fire ジ ャ ッ キ ー ・ チ ェ ン 、 ジ ャ ッ キ ー ・ チ ェ ン Kaneko Kaneko 32768 ROMs digitized characters
1996 x Sega Saturn Spartan X (on Irem Arcade Classics) ス パ ル タ ン X Irem I'Max 512 CD-ROM
1996 x PlayStation Spartan X (on Irem Arcade Classics) ス パ ル タ ン X Irem I'Max 512 CD-ROM
2001 GBA Jackie Chan Adventures : Legends of the Dark Hand ジ ャ ッ キ ー ・ チ ェ ン ア ド ベ ン チ ャ ー ズ Torus Games Activision 32768 Cartridge based on cartoon series, also on PS2 (different gameplay)
2009 x Windows Kung Fu II Kung Fu II The Games Page The Games Page 52 Download Fan project
2010 x Windows, Mac Kung Fu Master (on Irem Arcade Hits) Irem DotEmu 512 DVD-ROM Original arcade version
2011 x Android Kung Pow Kung Pow PhunDroid div. 512 Download Touchscreen, other music
2013 x Android , iOS KungFu Quest: The Jade Tower IPlayAllDay App Store Download 37 level, 8 bosses, upgrades e.g. .B clothing

There are also other games, especially Kung Fu , and fan projects.

Remarks:

  • Year : There are partly contradicting information on the publication dates. Many games have been reissued multiple times, mostly by different publishers, for the same platform. See in particular the notes on the Atari 2600 game.
  • Like Irem : Games with (almost) identical gameplay to the arcade version are checked.
  • Color palette : The color palette describes the selection of available colors and not those actually used.
  • Source : Only sources are given that are not already accessible via the databases (MobyGames and KLOV) specified in the web links, or that differ from them.
  • Atari 2600 : There are currently four known modules, some of them rare. The Activision version is often given as 1987. The other three, one of them by HES in Australia, are said to have appeared in 1984. Two stickers (see receipt) indicate this. Possibly it is a prototype or an adaptation of the copyright to the Irem version.
  • Game Boy : Officially part of the series, but different gameplay (plays outside, 6 levels, player can throw bombs). Four shades of gray or four selectable colors on the Game Boy Color.
  • NES Spartan X 2: Extended gameplay, plays mainly outside, especially on trains, direction of travel only to the right. Similar to Vigilante and Double Dragon .
  • Sega Saturn / PS (Irem Arcade Classics / ア イ レ ム ア ー ケ ー ド ク ラ シ ッ ク ス): Compilation with two other games. Only 1: 1 implementation (with minor, system-related adjustments).
  • Sega Master System : Black Belt / Hokuto-no-Ken series is based on Manga Fist of the North Star . Same action as Kung-Fu Master, partly very similar, but walking direction to the right, no stairs, inside and outside, indicated in Germany.

Info

Successor games

  • (Arcade): Super Kung-Fu Master / Super Spartan X / Kung-Fu Master 2 (prototype 1985) developed, appeared in 2015
  • (Arcade): Vigilante (3/1988)
  • (Nintendo Famicom ): Spartan X 2 (1991)

Movies

Although the game is called Spartan X in Japanese , it has only the title and the names of the characters in common with the movie Spartan X ( Powerman , Wheels on Meals ). The game is mainly based on Bruce Lee's My Last Fight ( Game of Death ): There is also a 5-story pagoda, the giant Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the kidnapping of Sylvias. In the film Bruce's Finger (1964, on Bruce Lee: Best of the Best ) you see the kidnapper's letter and a woman in a red dress tied to a chair.

In the movie Goodbye, Bruce Lee: His Last Game with Death (1975 with Bruce Li , not Lee) there is a 7-story pagoda. Here you can see the red pillars (color changes in the upper levels: three times red, twice brown, twice black) and the ceiling molding, which are very similar in this game.

The arcade game can be seen in the film Die Zeit with Julien ( Kung-Fu master! ).

Palsangjeon Pagoda / Beopjusa, film set from Game of Death 1972

Place of the pagoda

The pagoda is the Beopjusa Buddhist temple in Chungcheongbuk-do , South Korea. See: Bruce Lee, Der Weg einer Kämpfers / A Warrior's Journey ( My last fight documentary, 2000 with new excerpts found 27 years after death.) In the film, Bruce Lee has four fighters, one of whom dies per floor, up to he's fighting upstairs alone.

Level 1 is called Hall of the Tiger . The final boss is Master of the Escrima (Filipino stick fight, planned actor: Dan Inosanto )

Level 2 is called Floor of the Praying Mantis (praying mantis). Bruce Lee did not shoot the first two levels. It starts with the 3rd (stick fighter) who is the first in the game. The 5th level (giant Kareem) is therefore the third in the game.

Level 4 is called the Red Area . The fighting style there is called Hapkido and is portrayed by the actor Ji Han Jae .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Chrontendo-3-Video at archive.org, video position 46 min.
  2. ↑ 1983, MSX: GenerationMSX
  3. ↑ Kung Fu, ZX Spectrum 1984: MobyGames
  4. ↑ Atari 2600, 1984/1987 atari-computermuseum.de ( Memento of the original from November 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.atari-computermuseum.de
  5. ↑ YouTube video Spartan X for MSX 1985
  6. ↑ Kung-fu acho: GenMsx
  7. ^ Dragon Wang, pictures, video
  8. ↑ Gamefaqs: Kung Fu Road
  9. ↑ ZX Spectrum 1986: Worldofspectrum
  10. ↑ Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu (MobyGames)
  11. ^ Fists of Fire, KLOV entry
  12. ↑ Sega Saturn illustrations
  13. ↑ PS: Gamefaqs
  14. ↑ Jackie Chan Adventures, GBA, MobyGames
  15. ↑ Kung Fu II (2009) MobyGames entry
  16. ↑ Zhangku.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.zhangku.com  
  17. ↑ Google play
  18. ↑ arcadeheroes.com

Web links