The Karate Tournament
Karate Tournament is a one-on-one
fighting game for one or two players, based on the ancient and
most well known of martial arts, Karate.
Players enter a karate tournament—having first selected their preferred skill level, from either White, Brown or Black belt—and fight against a number of progressively tougher opponents. Each victory awards the player with a higher belt grade within their current belt color—white grade six to white grade five, for example—and if the player wins the tournament, he or she is awarded a higher belt color and the game ends. If players chooses to play the game on the 'Black Belt' skill level, defeating opponents is awarded with a higher grade, or 'dan' of Black Belt.
Karate Tournament uses a distinctive graphical technique in that it 'morphs' some of the combatants' movement graphics to simulate speed and motion blur. The game was also unique upon its release in that, in a world of Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats—replete with fantastical special moves—Karate Tournament was a genuine simulation of a recognized martial art; something not really seen since the first appearance of Data East's legendary genre-defining fighter, Karate Champ, released eight years' earlier in 1984. (arcade-history)
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