China Warrior
Reviewed by Inkhands
China Warrior plays an awful lot like the old Kung Fu game
on the NES, only with much bigger characters and a
completely different setting. However, it's actually more
laughable than that game. At least in my opinion it is. In
Kung Fu, enemies seem to walk toward you and cling to you
until you finally killed them or they drained all your
energy down. This game features those same zombie like
characters, because they all move toward you. However, when
they hit you they don't cling, they just die. Of course they
take a little of your life off before they die though. I
guess it's a suicide mission or something.
I don't know if I should bother explaining the story or not,
but apparently a horde of 'evil' people have taken over
the Ancient City in China. You, as Bruce Lee wannabe, must
annihilate these evildoers and restore peace to the land.
There are four stages in this game. In each of them you have
to play against three boss characters, which makes the
stages three levels long actually. Of course these boss
characters are incredibly lacking in creativity. The first
three guys are the same thing, only in different clothes.
The second level has two women that look exactly alike, but
the instruction manual dares to give them separate names.
There are other characters in this game, such as one that
looks exactly like your character, and a drunk man as the
final boss. This old man, named Boss Kara, is incredibly
tough and harder than the rest of the game put together. The
main reason being that he can't fight without taking a drink
first, and those drinks do something unfair to him and gives
him a rather high advantage over you.
Your character has a power meter. He can kick some floating
things that look like shoeboxes and gain some powerups. This
will add more power to his meter. It's actually called
oolong tea, but I'd prefer to just call it the shoebox
powerup. Your player walks on his own, but you can move him
back and forward at your leisure. However, he will move to
the edge of the screen on the left, but only halfway toward
the right. This guy is incredibly big, but mainly all he can
do it jump, kick, punch, crouch, and that's about it. There
is some sort of special attack he can do as well. I managed
to do it a few times, but I'm still not sure how I did it.
It was a punch, but a highly powerful one.
In between stages there is a special bonus stage. It's
basically you, breaking a vase for bonus points. There is a
meter and the closer you hit to maximum on it, the more
powerful the hit will be, and the more of the vase you will
break away. I have yet to figure out what the purpose to
this, but I suppose bonus points is important for some
reason. If a bonus stage were going to be included it could
have at least been an interesting one.
The guy just walks around way too slow. Not to mention not
only do you have monks, wearing different colored robes,
move toward you, you have to deal with flying objects. I
have no idea where the heck some of these things are coming
from. There are things that look like butterflies, that like
to fly in a swarm and in formation actually. There are
fireballs and blue flames. There are also Chinese fans
falling from the top of the screen. You also have some
arrows and flying sticks. I can't forget to mention the
flying knives either, that are very reminiscent of the
flying knives in Kung Fu. There are actually few enemies in
this game, other than the flying objects. Mainly you just
beat up some monk looking guys and the ending bosses and
that's about it.
Basically, just hit a button to punch, another one to kick,
and the Up button to jump. You can use left and right to
logically go left and right. The control is pretty bad in
this game. If no reason other than he kicks and punches with
absolutely no skill. For a supposed kung fu master, he's
fairly weak. As for challenge, I did play through all of
this game. Some of the bosses are difficult, because they
attack every second. That last boss is incredibly
challenging. None of these stages are very long though.
Basically, it's just avoid arrows, fight a girl, avoid fans,
fight a guy that looks like you, and avoid fireballs and
fight another girl. Overall, the game is short and has
medium challenge. Once you do beat the game, you can start
over and try to beat it again. The challenge will be higher
this time. The settings are the same, but there are more
enemies and they are more powerful, even in the earliest stages.
I suppose the game has some nice looking graphics. The
backgrounds of the first level are of a country side. There
is a nice blue lake to look at and some green grass to walk
around on. The second is inside a house, the third is
outside the house, and the fourth is actually in a forest
looking area. The light changes in these places sometimes.
Sometimes it is day, sometimes evening, and sometimes night.
The fighter takes up more than half of the screen. He wears
no shirt, but he has brown pants, black shoes. He also
blinks a lot. He can't seem to keep his eyes open for longer
than a second at a time. He's a pretty strong look man
actually. Most of the main enemies are as large as he is.
The background within the house has a very Asian look to it
and it's probably the best looking stage in the game. The
forest is dark and green. It's obviously taking place at
night. The guys with the robes look alike in the face.
Sometimes their robes are orange, sometimes they are gray,
and sometimes they are some other strange looking color that
just doesn't go with their eyes. I wish I could say a lot
about the music in this game. It's just an Oriental type of
sound and it gets pretty dull after a while. None of the
sound is as sharp as the graphics are. The graphics aren't
exactly the most impressive I've seen either, but they have
a nice look to them, even if they are a little too generic sometimes.
The fact the game opens up a more challenging stroll through
it again once you beat it, might give it some replay value.
I seriously doubt it though. I didn't particularly want to
play it again, after having just beat it, so I turned it
off. Overall, this turns into a very short, and almost too
simple fighting game. It's too slow to be any fun and the
control is certainly not a high point to this game. Kung Fu
may not have been a great game, but it was better than this
one anyway.
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 4/10
Control - 6/10
Challenge - 6/10
Appeal - 4/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay Value - 3/10
Overall: 4 out of 10
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