I don't know if you noticed, almost every one of the large traditional arcade developers in Japan in the 90s had a classic fighting game IP.
For example, we are familiar with Namco's "Iron Fist", "Soul Blade", Sega's "VR Warrior", SNK's "Legend of the Hungry Wolf", "King of Fighters", "Samurai Shodown", CAPCOM's "Street Fighter", "Demon Warrior", but the most influential Konami has not created a fighting game that attracts the world's attention!
Is this really the case?
In fact, Konami also created some fighting games in that year, and they all have a certain popularity. For example, we are familiar with arcade "Fighting Heroes", N64 "Deadly Machine", "Cute Fighting Skills", and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" related fighting games.
However, compared with the top traffic IP, there is still a certain distance.
But you know, the fighting game that dominated in the 80s was Konami's Kung Fu, which at the time could be said to have swept the entire action game and fighting game.
The game's English name is Yie Ar Kung-Fu, and I've always suspected that it was Bruce Lee's martial arts mantra "I fight. Oh oh oh! ”
This game can only be played by one person, and the opponents are all masters with Chinese martial arts. The main line of the game is aimed at "kicking the pavilion". The protagonist's father was once defeated and killed in a martial arts conference, and in order to avenge the protagonist participated in the contest and defeated all the opponents, it was considered to be a great revenge for his father.
In the arcade version, our protagonist is called: Oolong, which literally translates to "oolong tea". Doesn't the name sound very familiar?
If we look closely, we will find that these kung fu masters all have prototypes, including Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Hong Jinbao, and some of them are characters from Chinese martial arts movies in the 70s and 80s.
Now, one sentence to say, the development team of "The Legend of the Hungry Wolf" once said: I don't know some of the characteristics of the character of the fire dance, and indeed borrow from the fan child in "Kung Fu": Miss Fan.
When "Hungry Wolf Legend 2" was developed, CAPCOM already had Chunli on this side, so I didn't know that the fire dance could not use the qipao, so it was changed to a similar to the qipao, and the attack method and red theme of the fan were retained.
It is estimated that most of the small partners are not in contact with the arcade version, but the red and white machine game. (Have you ever chosen LEVEL2?) ）
After all, "Kung Fu" is a relatively popular game in the 1980s, and the red and white machine platform did not officially enter its peak in China until the 1990s. So a lot of players are exposed to this platform.
The opponent in the red and white machine version is only five people, and after a round, the bell rings to start over. As long as you master the skill, you can not die forever, so the challenge continues.
In fact, there is a small bug in the game, jumping up and kicking the opponent will appear hard straight, and then repeatedly jumping to become an infinite connection.
As shown in the following figure:
A player once commented on the game: If my mom doesn't beat me, I can play for a day.
In the Red and White machine version, the names of the characters have been adjusted to a certain extent. Our protagonist directly becomes "Lee", that is, Bruce Lee.
In fact, it is not difficult to challenge martial artists, the most important thing is to reward the level. This requires precise calculation of what attack method to use, and the wrong step will directly fall to the ground.
Master Mu's impact drill has always been the shadow of the editor, in addition to standing in the middle of the fist can not think of other ways to crack, each time flying very fast, simply can not be prevented!
According to the intelligence, we learned that Honda's impact drill in "Street Fighter" is a reference to this move, but the protagonist at this time does not have a Shenglong Fist at all. During the Legend of the Hungry Wolf period, Billy's stick used when no one had weapons was also a tribute to the game.
The red and white machine platform actually has a hidden character, that is, Miss Lang's sister, who was originally designed to be a little girl image. But in the end, it was abandoned for various reasons, but we can still find her presence in the original ROM.
Miss Lang:
Miss Lang's sister, although she did not appear on the red and white machine, used her on the MSX platform to replace Miss Lang's position.
Perhaps for the players of 8090, the arcade version of "Kung Fu" does not have any feelings. But for foreign players, it is a special love. In today's high-definition games, the Xbox 360 platform has also launched a high-definition reset version of "Kung Fu", and it has been well received.
This seems to show the weight of emotional games in the minds of players.
Xbox 360 Kung Fu
So, what is the effect of "Kung Fu" on other platforms?
On the GBA platform, Konami also added two new characters specifically for Kung Fu: Bishoo and Clayman
Amstrad CPC (the earliest PC platform)
ZX Spectrum (an 8-bit keyboard-based personal computer manufactured by Sinclair in the United Kingdom in 1982)
C64 (Commodore 64, also known as CBM 64, VIC-64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Camuda International)
C16
Acorn Electron
BBC Micro
PS
MSX
Famicom (1st Generation Red and White Machine)
Super Game Boy
Game Boy Color
In Sexy Sharomant Snake we see the protagonist of Kung Fu again.
So the question is, such a classic game, is there a sequel!
Many years ago, Konami did launch the orthodox sequel to "Kung Fu", but it did not set off much of a storm, perhaps with the chosen platform! Because Kung Fu 2 was originally released on the MSX platform.
The game screen, as well as all the characters that appear.
The protagonist of this generation, it is said that he is a descendant of the protagonist of the first generation, named "Li Yang".
The sequels were significantly less influential than their predecessors, and no other sequels were released in the 90s. As a result, Kung Fu eventually became a legend and could not compete with other fighting games.
However, Konami has also responded by releasing a spiritual sequel to Kung Fu, and the game is called Martial Arts Champion, which is not very popular.
Two years later, Konami released another fighting game, Battle Heroes. The quality of this game is quite high. It is not very friendly to novices, resulting in many players not daring to get started.
It can be seen that the picture quality of the game can also keep up with the times, and the gameplay is very innovative. Curiously, it didn't make waves in the fighting game market, resulting in the fact that it was always unknown.
Konami has been eyeing the fighting game market for many years, but unfortunately, in the most glorious period of fighting games, it did not create a game that makes people remember the name, and could not return to the peak state of the "Kung Fu" period. Today, years later, it still seems a pity.
Note: Some of the material in the article comes from the Internet, such as intrusion and deletion