Preliminary: The collision masks are terrible and the controls are clunky even for 87, yet here I was, already on the final stage. Not sure what caught me into it: I am a sucker for games based on movies, sure, but also the 2nd stage's Look was real nice... and I liked the title screen Sound... and I found the fighting intuitive albeit clunky and a bit overly easy. I didn't even have to use any savestates yet... We'll see how the last stage goes though.

Look: 8/10 First I was impressed by the title screen Look and Sound. Meh to the first stage, but loved the second stage look. Then before I knew it (tho the third stage did increase in difficulty, it still was very doable... plus most the "difficulty" was due to the utterly awful controls and mechanics lol...), I saw this beautiful sight for the last stage!

You know I'm always a sucker for Golden Hour colors. Oh and good UI too

Sound: 8/10 Great title screen jingle, good end of level sound effect, and overall that classic brawler and action platformer type Sound.

Play: 6/10 As cool as the Look was for the 2nd and 3rd stage, it was darn near impossible to tell depth. Apparently everything was a platform I could jump on to? Except when it wasn't. At least it was forgiving rather than harsh about this lack of depth portrayal. In general, forgiving is the word for the game. Forgiving collision masks, forgiving uh lack of platform clarity?, forgiving health replenishment and lives system. Not the norm for NES... But you know I'm a sucker for forgiving, er easy, games (and games made easy for kids haha, as we saw with the 70s and early 80s games). A couple pro-tips: the C's in the 2nd and 3rd stages are not just points, they replenish your health, making it relatively easy to complete. Also, you can hit away the projectiles in the 3rd stage. (Uh, once I finally caught enough Flies in the Bonus Stage it turns out apparently the C's and D's stand for special moves? Really not necessary tbh... plus they heal you? Nice. Forgiving indeed haha)

As clunky and frankly outright terrible the controls and mechanics were (lol sorry but they really were, like that jump graphic and execution is literally terrible), it surprised me with a couple niceties that weren't quite the norms yet, such as kicking while in the air and hitting away projectiles.

Feel: 8/10 I'm always a sucker for games based on movies, but I don't know Karate Kids very well. Still, you could see that it was based on a movie. There's something about games based on movies where the Look comes to life more, even when I haven't seen the movie. Hard to explain. Plus, without it being based on a movie, I would've liked the setting of the 2nd stage and the colors of the final stage. Regardless, the Feel can't be denied, since here I was playing through it on an otherwise frustrating night as I'm dealing with gum/tooth pain ha.

Attachment: 7/10 Right when things felt like they might finally be too hard, and I was low on health and about to be at the end of the game, the game gives me a full health thing with the guy I collect from up top lol. Well-made, but sheesh very forgiving thank you. (Ok wait, the jump after that killed me lmao. First death of the game). And in general the final moments were as terrible as the controls and mechanics were: I hadn't mentioned it before because I'd seen it in other games from this era that I liked, but it's a game where if the boss falls out of the screen (which in this game happens a lot because the poorly done bounce mechanic is absolutely out of control, and the 3rd and 4th stage bosses clearly were gonna fall out of screen a lot with how it's set up). Also, you have the woman character (not very familiar with the films) on the platform with you and if she falls off it's insta-death. Point being, I went from no savestates used to outright abusing savestates after the 3rd insta-death in just the final moments of the final stage lol (e.g., I used a savestate right before the start of that final "boss fight"). Ironically, in the end, just getting the boss to spawn then standing far left of the woman and essentially barely/easily timing my high kicks was enough to beat it. Lol the ending... it was so abrupt after this, then just went back to the title screen. Short and to-the-point indeed

Technically a terrible game, but here I am. People would say "oh but it's from 1987." Well, if you play other 87 games, you'd see this still is not well-made. But the Look and the Feel, partly thanks to it being based on a film, partly thanks to its uniquely crappy-yet-forgiving gameplay, hooked me in anyway.

Completion: Main Story Playtime: 20 mins