Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!


Review and Download (if available)

This aint IK+ nor even close to it. :D

EDIT: Because there's no cheat to see the characters there in nude... especially the lady you're rescuing... :bleh:

I Just wanted to say, that i can remeber playing this on my old pc!
All my friend where standing in line to play!

So I say this game is :kosta:

Well it has more of a story, but the fighting isn't nearly as good I give you that (and I just had to edit your post a bit :tomato: ).

Karateka is great, in that you can see the origins of Jordan Mechner's cinematic approach to graphics realized in Prince of Persia. I first played this gem on an Apple ][.

Can one get past the "Make sure the disk is in drive A" prompt?

I'm gonna nit-pick here because I feel there are a few important things this review fails to mention:

This game was originally made for the C64 and ported to IBM CGA.

This game was made by none other than Jordan Mechner. Jordan Mechner was more an independent film maker than a game maker when he started writing Karateka, hense the reason for the cinematic quality that had never been seen before. After Karateka Mr. Mechner went on to refine his digital story telling prowis producing Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia 2. (Mechner also produced the more modern PoP series, tho he had nothing to do with the unpopular PoP3D produced in 1999.)

This under "If you liked this game..." both PoP need to be added.

Ahh, glad that's off my chest.

I was about to make a similar remark to guesst's.

This is a great precursor to Prince of Persia. I believe this is the first game where they used rotoscoping. Anyone care to prove me wrong?

:kosta: The Apple ][ brings back back so many memories and this game was and IS still awesome :kosta:

I'm not so sure this game used rotoscoping, but it's possible owing to the non-pixelated look of the graphics. Made-from-scratch graphics tend to be more... well, less like this anyways. Maybe he just used photographic references, I don't know.

I know he used rotoscoping for Prince of Persia. His brother provided the footage and he spent hours translating it into the computer.

Well, not really. The C64 version came out the same year as the PC one... The Apple II, Atari 8bit and NES versions came out 2 years earlier, so the game isn't a C64 original (although I know it from the good old breadbox as well).

As for the rest of the remarks... Well, I hope you don't mind sharing the review credit with me (have a look and tell me what you think).

I used to play this game a lot on my old NES, but I never finished it.
I remember the cutscenes of the "boss" sending his henchmen against you every time you beat someone... very nice :ok:

Read the technical note at the end of the review!!!

Well, not really. The C64 version came out the same year as the PC one... The Apple II, Atari 8bit and NES versions came out 2 years earlier, so the game isn't a C64 original (although I know it from the good old breadbox as well).

As for the rest of the remarks... Well, I hope you don't mind sharing the review credit with me (have a look and tell me what you think). [/b][/quote]
My bad on the originality of the versions. My unresearched bad.

As for the other. Cool. That's just cool.

Ohhh yeahhh! This game brings back many, many memories from the Apple IIe and AtariST versions. The first time I figured out how to get past the portcullis inside the stronghold was cause for celebration. (...as was the first time I realized how fun falling off the mountain was. :ok:) Great find!

COMMENCE THE DOWNLOADING! :Titan:

For a real laugh, approach the girl in the fighting stance, but only after you have finished it once, already.

WOW!
I played this game almost 10 years ago!
great stuff. :ok:

I had forgotten how good this game was. And it's one of the few games that I enjoy on the PC more than on the C-64. ^.^

trying to get Karateka to work, I have dosbox, mounted a folder as an a:/ drive and put the karateka files in and and tried to run them, still stuck at "make sure your Karateka disk is in drive a..." any ideas?

READ THE REVIEW as I've already explained it there!

ah, so I'm just falling under the "It may still give you problems" area... I tried a disk - setup and tried dosbox (also went through the tutorial) and it still doesn't work so I'm SOL?

anyone else have any ideas?

So all the files are in a folder that's mounted as A:
And you've changed to drive A: in DOSBox
And you didn't reduce the speed
And you started the game, but it doesn't work?

I have now tried both:

mount a c:\dos\adrive

and

mount a a:\

I start the game and it has a splash screen for Broderbund and then gets to a screen that says "make sure your karateka disk is in drive a press any key to continue"

I have also tried it ouside of dosbox, just the files on a disk and still no luck

not sure what else to try...

ps. I looked for the anykey and couldn't find it anywhere :P

figured it out, I needed -t floppy after mount a a:\

mount a a:\ -t floppy

that's the right way to do it

thanks for your help

Nah, I didn't actually do anything... Maybe I should have mantioned that -t floppy command (it's in the DOSBox tutorial though...). Anyway, thank you for trying and explaining what you did Graham, it may help many others play this great game (enjoy it) :ok:

If i remember the PoP-History video from "Warrior Within" or "The Two Thrones" - not sure which had it - correctly he used it first in PoP, but i have to watch the video again to be sure.

[edit]
i currently watch the video - its on the Warrior Within DVD by the way - and given to what he and the others there say he used the rotoscope first with PoP

is the PC version just as unresponsive as the GB version ? since then I must say, there is a BIG difference between shite and cool retro abandonware.

I don't know about the GB version because all I played was the C=64 version. It ran pretty well but did suffer from a bit of control issues that once you got used to was fine. That is to say, your character doesn't respond to your moves right away, so you have to get use to kinda pre-programming your moves.

Maybe that's why this one is in the Crypt.

I may have to get this one running and upload an appended .conf file for yawl. Unless someone else already has one they can upload. (Just append the part in the autoexec section for us.)

Hmmm I think I will decide not to like it. But hey :) peace to those who loves that game :)

Have you tried it??? It's one of the rare cases when an old PC game is actually better (gameplay) then the C64 one.

I have only tried to play the GB version, and that version of the game, made me cringe. So I am very wary about other versions of the game , like C64, PC , and APPLE 2 version.

still can't get past the press any key screen did what was mentioned above

Nevermind... Just figured it out...

You must press space when you see the credits (before you get the insert disk message).

ok that worked now anyone know hoe to get past that gate that always kills you? I never could get past that on the apple even

if i remember it right, i think you have to punch or kick the space below the gate. that way, the "gate trap" sensor will sense an object below it and will cause the "gate trap" to lower. wait a few seconds. when the gate is drawing up, run past it!

Strange, I just beat the boss after the doors and hawk and when I try to run into the next room, I get the Insert Disk in A:\ prompt. Shoot.

I just kept pressing space while the cut scene was playing - got through, could play on without any problems.

Yep, that's what I get every time I beat him, still couldn't see any of the cut scenes (AFAIK, there are two of them: one at the beginning, one at the end when you approach the princess, and both are protected with the "drive a" message).

Is there a workaround for this thing? Could anybody enter that room after beating the warlord?

I've tried mapping the drive a: to the folder with the game, I've even tried putting the game on a floppy and playing from it - it's still the same :(

Any ideas, anybody?

Maybe I can buy the game somewhere?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jun 30 2006, 11:53 PM) [snapback]240835[/snapback]</div>Sorry, that was me - didn't notice I wasn't logged in, so the quote at the beginning was lost, here it is:

:)
Any ideas, anyone?

Many thanks for this game my 360k floppy disk is dead...

This was my 1st crack on PC and after 25 years I made it again...
To bypass the drive A: check find these bytes in KARATEKA.EXE:
74 06 E8 82 01
and replace with:
90 90 E8 82 01

To do it, use any Hex editor. I have used Ztree - www.ztree.com

If you applied my crack you'll notice that our "heroe" stops in the 2nd part of game...
Yes, it's a bad crack...
If you applied it please undo and do this:
search for:
75 05 E8 6B 29
and change it to:
EB 05 E8 6B 29

Now you can play it fully, can see the credits and demo mode...

BTW, using Ctrl-Q you can abort it...

For those of you who can't handle hex-editors and such stuff, a full functional crcked version of Karateka can be found here:
h++p://rapidshare.de/files/25354765/KaratekaCRK.zip.htm

Hmm, I don't have my C64 (with original game! Woo!) with me, so I can't check this directly, but I do know the review is incorrect in saying "space is for side step." Just hit it and see: space switches you between your fighting stance and your running stance. (If I remember, it was the up arrow/up on joystick to go into running. Also . . . hmm, the C64 graphics were smoother, i.e., there was actually an animation to make said switch. And . . . why is there no sound?)

But getting back to controls, don't forget the bow button: hit "b" while in the running stance to bow to your opponent.

--Rexfelum

Sorry to double-post, but I was clearly wrong about the "no animation when switching between your fighting stance and your running stance" thing. It would seem I was thinking of something else.

--Rexfelum

The HEX edit trick did the job! But it's so hard playing! What's a good strategy (should I move forward when I punch/kick? What's the difference between the different moves? Etc.)? And I so wish there would be a jumping kick!

Forget it! Your HEX edit did nothing, nothing! With or without it, I only see the prompt once I enter the princess' room! I don't even know which prompt is there besides that one.

Ok, sorry, sorry. Your HEX edit DOES fix the first prompt (which is shown only if I don't press anything in the start), but not the second one (and believe me I clicked anything once I entered that room).

If anyone does get a properly hacked version let us know. I'm positive Abandonia would like to host it.

Ok, there's another way to solve this. You just need to add 2 files to the archive. You can find them in the 1994 version (which the Underdogs have, but it's crippled - the keyboard gets stuck on level 2 and it can't be run at all without mounting drive a in DOSBox).

The files are TITLE.BCG and PRNGAL.
The former removes the opening prompt and the latter the ending one.

So no need for HEX edit! Just add those 2 files to your archive! I can send them over if you like.

We'd most appreciate that.

Me sending it over? To where? Well, I can just tell you privately where to get those 2 files...

You can zip them, upload the zip to Rapidshare and post the link here.

Fine...
(Update: URL to file removed now it's official).

Please officially replace the site's archive with this one. It just adds the two aforementioned files.

P.S.
What's up with RapidShare asking me which upload-path I want (Cogent, Level(3) or Telia)? What's the difference? I just kept the default (Cogent)...

Excelent. Downloading now and I'll update it after I virus scan it.

...done and done. The new archive is up on the site. It looks like it works now without the annoyance of having to switch it to the A drive like it says on the main page. can anyone convirm this?

lwc, Abandonia thanks you.

Well, that was my entire purpose after all...
(although as mentioned, in the 1994 version it is needed but then the game is crippled, so just stick to the older version this site - my extra files now officially included - has arranged for you).

Well, then prove it by helping me solve the top secret in WWF European Rampage.

First played in Apple II computer, then PC. Even though the game needs some "tweaking" (or myself need some tweaking), but the game gave most nostalgia as the first thing made me liking the computer technology......

"make sure your karateka disk is in drive a"
 

For all, who is faced with the

"make sure your karateka disk is in drive a"

message.

The version of the Abandonia can not display cut scenes.

Therefore you should quickly press space bar at the beginning, just inn order to skip the opening cut scene. But the problem is, that after you have beaten the khan you won't see the last scene either.

The version form oldgames does not have this problem.