Ludography
50/100
Players5 ratings

Where to get it

China Warrior cover

1987 · Hudson Soft · Beat 'em up · Fighting

China Warrior

Timed NEC exclusive

Boss Kara and his evil horde has captured the entire kungfu province. You are summoned - You obediently go knowing full any of Kara's bullies could no doubt put out your lights. You must face them and their specialties one by one .. then finally Kara himself.

Released
21 November 1987
Platforms
Nintendo 3DSPlayStation Store TurboGrafx-16TurboGrafx-16WiiWii U
Genres
Beat 'em upFighting
Developers
Hudson Soft
Publishers
Hudson Soft
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Side view
Themes
Action
Country
Japan
Age ratings
ESRB E10+PEGI 16CERO A
Languages
English
Time to beat
1hcompletionist

About

China Warrior, known as The Kung Fu (THE 功夫) in Japan, is a beat 'em up video game created in 1987 by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-16. The game received mixed reviews upon release, with praise for its large sprite graphics but criticism towards its gameplay.

The game was ported to mobile phones and the Hudson Channel for the PlayStation 2 exclusively in Japan with redone graphics, audio, and gameplay. The PC Engine version was also released for the Wii's, Nintendo 3DS's, and Wii U's Virtual Console and on the Japanese PlayStation Store.

Keywords

  • wii virtual console
  • nintendo 3ds virtual console
  • wii u virtual console

Media

China Warrior screenshot 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The object of the game is to walk through each stage while throwing punches and kicks at enemies and objects, which also can be done in midair. There are four levels which are broken down into three stages each, for a total of twelve stages. When Wang gets knocked out, the game starts over at the beginning of the stage in which he got knocked out. Players can memorize the object/enemy pattern in order to get through the stage more easily whenever Wang gets knocked out. At the end of each level, there is a boss fight.

The gameplay and controls are similar to Irem's arcade game Kung-Fu Master (1984), with gameplay also similar to Taito's Gladiator (1986) without the sword or shield held in hand. The graphics utilized very large character models that fill up the screen. They were capable of moving without any graphical flickering.

Story

A Chinese martial artist named Wang (王(ワン)), whose style resembles that of Bruce Lee, embarks on a mission to bring down opposing enemies and the Dark Emperor, who stands atop the castle Luo Yang Ge (洛陽閣(ルーヤンカク)) in China.

Reception

China Warrior received a 16.68/30 score in a 1993 readers' poll conducted by PC Engine Fan, ranking among PC Engine titles at the number 474 spot. The game garnered generally unfavorable reviews from critics.

Computer and Video Games reviewed Drunken Master for the PC Engine, giving it a 58% score. They praised the "giant-sized sprites" as "very impressive on this horizontally scrolling kung-fu game" but said "only three moves result in the game becoming ultimately dull". Electronic Gaming Monthly criticized its simple gameplay and Bruceploitation but praised for the large character sprites.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
TurboGrafx-1621 December 1987Worldwide
Wii5 June 2007Japan · Europe 22 June 2007 · North America 25 June 2007 · Australia 7 August 2007
Nintendo 3DS25 December 2013Japan
Wii U30 April 2014Japan · North America 7 September 2017

Editions and related releases

Included in
PC Engine MiniTurboGrafx-16 Mini

Games like this

Collections7 collections

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.