Karateka Getting the Atari 50 Treatment

[zzip]

Is it out?

[Razzie.P]

5 hours ago, zzip said:

Is it out?

Yep.  Released yesterday.   I think the Switch version is delayed in some regions though, but not sure of details there.

 

I love this one.  The new remastered version would be worth the price (for me) even without all the other stuff

[roots.genoa]

The Switch version is only delayed outside the US.

[Emehr]

I pre-ordered on GOG and got $5 off. Just downloaded today and tried it out. My only exposure to Karateka is the 7800 version (yeah, I know) but I love these Digital Eclipse offerings and have a great appreciation for indie game developers. And for $5 off, why not?

 

I played the Apple II version and was able to make it inside the fortress and to the gate, where I was summarily killed because I couldn't get into my fighting stance quick enough. That was already a lot further than I had ever made it in the 7800 version! And my hand wasn't cramped by then either!

 

I then tried the "remix" version (or whatever they call it) and it was nice! The pixel art is true to the spirit of the original and there are a lot of nice background animations. The only thing that bothers me (and this goes for a lot of modern pixel art games) is the pixel inconsistency. I feel like if the art is going to be blocky, then so should the lighting. But that's just a minor nitpick. It looks and plays great otherwise. I still need to delve further into it...

[Tanooki]

I saw that was out due to some news mixed with the autumn gog sale pointing it out.

 

Waiting on reviews, not a huge fan, but have the famicom game on a couple multicarts.  I think it could be worthwhile but I want to see where things go with it first.  Hopefully more here grab it and can tear it apart a bit for better or worse.

[Razzie.P]

22 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I saw that was out due to some news mixed with the autumn gog sale pointing it out.

 

Waiting on reviews, not a huge fan, but have the famicom game on a couple multicarts.  I think it could be worthwhile but I want to see where things go with it first.  Hopefully more here grab it and can tear it apart a bit for better or worse.

What are you looking for regarding "tear it apart" specifically?  The videos run well and the document exhibits are clear.  😁

 

The Games

3 OG Versions of Karateka, and a bunch of prototypes of that game and one called Deathbounce.  Asteroid Blaster and Star Blaster from '82 and '83.   So pretty much the entire game list plays like ass or is unfinished.   The only actual games that I feel are worth some real playtime on there are the 2 remasters for Karateka and Deathbounce.  They're really well done and great inclusions.  If you weren't a fan of Karateka, though, then even the remaster might be a bit flat for you and not worth it.

 

The product

This is where it's kinda tricky to tear it apart, in my opinion.  Viewed as a "game" or even a "game collection," it's not good.  But as an interactive museum tour format (or whatever they're calling this approach) where you follow a timeline of events leading to the game's creation, plus get to see original documents and interview footage and such - that's where it's great and nails the delivery.  I'm sure they could have added more ports to pad it out, but I don't personally think having more versions of the same game would have improved the value too much. 

 

 

[Tanooki]

I only found out about the non-karateka titles after posting that, and one not both of them reading a few comments elsewhere.  The remasters of the old titles I hadn't seen anything solid on about other than they existed, most nerds seemed to dive into how nice the emulation and choices were of the originals which is nice.  I can do the original, have Karateka on some FC multicarts(vintage, and modern) and could do the same with the GB one too.  I'm not a big fan, but it's nice to pop the game up on occasion to see how far I can get before I get sucker punched as it's unique in a better way with a Prince of Persia meets the non-suck bits of Karate Champ.

 

I hope they do this for Prince of Persia as I'd be well way over the point of even questioning buying that.  I've enjoyed the DOS, NES, GB, and GBC releases of that one.

[Razzie.P]

I realize this might sound silly to some, but to me, the games themselves are the least important part of these.. ugh.. whatever they are (interactive museum?)   The fact that they're included and emulated so nicely is an awesome bonus for sure, but if this series only included all the documentary type stuff with the interactive bits and playable prototypes/WIP versions of whatever title it's exploring, it's still be a "must have" for me. 

 

Having seen what they've done with Atari 50 and now this title -- if future titles in this series can maintain the same format and quality, I'll pick them all up for each game regardless of whether or not I'm actually a fan of the game.  I'm a fan of the history of the development and industry as a whole to want to experience these for any "important" title, regardless of whether or not I actually like the game.   

 

 

[RARusk]

12 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I only found out about the non-karateka titles after posting that, and one not both of them reading a few comments elsewhere.  The remasters of the old titles I hadn't seen anything solid on about other than they existed, most nerds seemed to dive into how nice the emulation and choices were of the originals which is nice.  I can do the original, have Karateka on some FC multicarts(vintage, and modern) and could do the same with the GB one too.  I'm not a big fan, but it's nice to pop the game up on occasion to see how far I can get before I get sucker punched as it's unique in a better way with a Prince of Persia meets the non-suck bits of Karate Champ.

 

I hope they do this for Prince of Persia as I'd be well way over the point of even questioning buying that.  I've enjoyed the DOS, NES, GB, and GBC releases of that one.

In the early 90's I spent a year gametesting for Broderbund Software and I helped test both the DOS and Amiga versions of PoP. I'm curious to see how they could do this if Ubisoft would let them. Fun fact: one of the other testers was bored with the game and he decided to try to play the game only using the sound cues from the built-in speaker and with the monitor turned off thus going in blindfolded. I believe that he made it about 75% of the way through.

[Tanooki]

Wow PoP blind that’s impressive. I could hope Ubisoft would allow it. This game has a #1 on it so maybe there’s more to come. 

[DavidD]

The problem here is that while I'm interested in this conceptually, $19.99 seems like an overly optimistic price for what you get.

 

Granted, I also think Atari 50 should have been about $20, so...

[Tanooki]

That's my feeling too when I saw the price.  I wishlisted it on GoG and/or Steam (forget which) and when it inevitably in the not distant future gets a slice I may try it out.  The history is appealing, but so is the remaster side of things since I can fire up the Famicom version whenever.

[Razzie.P]

3 hours ago, DavidD said:

The problem here is that while I'm interested in this conceptually, $19.99 seems like an overly optimistic price for what you get.

 

Out of curiosity, what is your impression of "what you get?" 

 

 

I've spent about 4 hours watching the footage and reading all the material.  So checking the price of new 1.5 to 2 hours movies/documentaries, and checking the price of new books, that seems great to me.  (and I view this approach more comparable to those media types than a rom collection).  So that's about 4 hours without even factoring in the playtime for the 2 new games.

 

And those 2 "new" games in here are really well done.  I could see these selling on their own for a few bucks each.  More for Karateka, given the name and the fact that it could be considered the "definitive/director's cut" type of thing given how smoothly it plays and they added previously wanted content that didn't make the cut.  Plus the commentary option.

 

For me, $15 - $20 seems about right.  I'm all for getting things on the cheap, but taking my own stingy preferences out of it and seeing what they've put into this, I can't imagine they could cut it much and still be worth their time to maintain the same level of quality for future interactions.  Or maybe they could, I dunno.  But I feel like if the market sends the message that this type of product is worth 5 - 10 bucks, we either won't see the series continue or we'll see future releases start to have "just a little less" to offer for their respective titles.

 

 

[DavidD]

4 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

Out of curiosity, what is your impression of "what you get?"

 

See, the problem here is that I really don't care about the video documentaries.  I'd rather read through the information than sit through hours of interviews.  As a result, I really don't care about that half of the package.  I view it entirely as a collection of games, and it seems quite overpriced for that.

 

Unless the video presentations are better than Atari50 -- I just found the Atari50 stuff kind of slow after a certain point.  I mean, what they did is an interesting concept, but I really don't care enough to watch through that many short videos.  I'd rather read transcripts... and while I might buy a book about the history of a company, I'm not really looking to get that sprinkled throughout a gaming compilation.

[Razzie.P]

30 minutes ago, DavidD said:

See, the problem here is that I really don't care about the video documentaries.  I'd rather read through the information than sit through hours of interviews.  As a result, I really don't care about that half of the package.  I view it entirely as a collection of games, and it seems quite overpriced for that.

 

Unless the video presentations are better than Atari50 -- I just found the Atari50 stuff kind of slow after a certain point.  I mean, what they did is an interesting concept, but I really don't care enough to watch through that many short videos.  I'd rather read transcripts... and while I might buy a book about the history of a company, I'm not really looking to get that sprinkled throughout a gaming compilation.

Gotcha.  I've talked to a few people who were let down because of the game collection aspect, so I figured that might be the case.  Based on what you've said there, I would say this one (and probably the whole series if they continue focusing on single games) would have little to no value for you.  As a game collection, it's not good at all, and I would say it's absolutely not worth the price in that respect (even though I do think the remastered version is worth most of the $$$ by itself.  The bulk of the included games are unfinished, WIP type of things that only serve to provide hands on examples during the appropriate "this is where we were at that point" in the timeline. 

 

I hope they have success with it and hope they continue, and I really hope they find a way to market the "what this is" part of things a bit better.  I think they've found something a bit new with these.  Like watching a documentary or reading a book, but while doing so, you can dive right in to experience the exact moment/version of the game they're talking about, instead of just taking their word for it.  Pretty awesome to me.

[DavidD]

8 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

Gotcha.  I've talked to a few people who were let down because of the game collection aspect, so I figured that might be the case.  Based on what you've said there, I would say this one (and probably the whole series if they continue focusing on single games) would have little to no value for you.  As a game collection, it's not good at all, and I would say it's absolutely not worth the price in that respect (even though I do think the remastered version is worth most of the $$$ by itself.  The bulk of the included games are unfinished, WIP type of things that only serve to provide hands on examples during the appropriate "this is where we were at that point" in the timeline. 

 

I hope they have success with it and hope they continue, and I really hope they find a way to market the "what this is" part of things a bit better.  I think they've found something a bit new with these.  Like watching a documentary or reading a book, but while doing so, you can dive right in to experience the exact moment/version of the game they're talking about, instead of just taking their word for it.  Pretty awesome to me.

Oh, I'll probably grab it when/if it drops to $10 or so -- I find playing through the older versions an interesting concept, and I'm sure I'll get SOME interest in the archival docs, I just don't see that as compelling enough to purchase the compilation.

[Tanooki]

I'm in the same boat with game package vs total package.  I love history, but one thing I do not enjoy is sitting through slow plodding interviews and puff pieces.  It's not to say I wouldn't care about the content, but I'd prefer to power through it reading it, like the amazing bitmap bros GB, NES/FC, SNES/SFC books, the various "WORKS" books from Jeremy Parish (I have the Virtual Boy one.)  That's great, pick up, get some fun pages down, come back or keep going at MY PACE.   So in the end it's $20 for Karateka itself remastered some, and some fluff piece games that didn't come out and some really fluff piece betas that aren't so wow from comments that amount to filler.  At $10 I'd be in.  As like I said, if this were Prince of Persia I'd be far more interested given it's the same creator and rotoscoping setup here at play.  I'd still feel largely the same about the fluffy documentary bits, but knowing there would be X many versions of PoP to try, then the sequel, and who knows whatever else that would be very very enticing.  Given next year a new PoP game (in the classic style, but more modern like Castlevania Mirror of Fate was) coming to market maybe it is game vol 002 for this since Karateka was marked as 001.

[roots.genoa]

Honestly I think the $20 price is OK because I feared it would be more ($40?) given the amount of work it probably took, but I'll probably wait for a sale (and what will be the next games in the series) before I buy it, since I'm not very familiar and not that much interested in Karateka even though I'm aware it was quite innovative for the time. I'm torn about the videos. To be honest, I'm often too lazy to read text so I think I prefer videos, but the videos in Atari 50 often felt like movie featurettes (more about funny anecdotes than actual information). Also it annoyed me there weren't any time bar at the bottom of the videos, because I like to know in advance if I'm going to watch a 3-minute video or a 30-minute one. 😅

[+jgkspsx]

Jordan Mechner is probably the only person in gaming who kept things this organized AND has the rights to what he made, so I don’t see this series keeping up this level of fidelity past his games anyway.

 

This review made me certain to buy it https://toucharcade.com/2023/09/05/the-making-of-karateka-switch-review-rune-factory-3-eshop-download-price/

 

But $20 is the point at which I wait to see if it gets a physical release or goes on sale. Like many of you, I am not a huge fan of Karateka.

 

It sounds like Prince of Persia is next in line and that I’d be happy to pay $20 for.

[Tanooki]

I hope you're right, I'd drop $20 on the variations of Prince of Persia.  There just isn't much game to Karateka and if you take one sucker punch it's over.  Not a bad game, but it's kind of a one and done until the mood strikes again.  PoP fully more so inspires the cares to keep going.

[Razzie.P]

8 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Jordan Mechner is probably the only person in gaming who kept things this organized AND has the rights to what he made, so I don’t see this series keeping up this level of fidelity past his games anyway.

 

 

I thought about that while working my way through it.   They certainly hit the jackpot of "extra stuff to add" because of Mechner's organization and archiving processes, but I imagine it'd be hard to find that much variety with others.  I guess they could fill in the content with more interview footage though, to fill it out.

[Tanooki]

Sid Meier is that nuts, there's a heap of stuff that guy likes to randomly show off from development of Civilization and I remember other bits mentioned, his trains game I think.

 

I think he still keeps the original Civ machine running decades old now because of some losses it's like the existing thing left if I am remembering that fairly right.

[+jgkspsx]

I’m not gonna lie, if I buy the Making of Karateka it is in large part to see what a Jordan Mechner Asteroids clone looks like.

[digdugnate]

I believe Karateka was released on Switch this morning

[Flojomojo]

I like the big 01 on it, implying there will be a series. I'll get it eventually when I have more slack time for games. Hopefully 02 or 03 will be the rumored Llamasoft collection.