Arcade Games Vs Atari 2600 - Kung-Fu Master

In Season 10 of Retro Comparisons we take a look every arcade game that made its way over to the Atari 2600

[shotgunl]

The one that kicked off the single-plane beat-em-up genre. Bad Dudes, Vigilante, Two Crude Dudes, as well as those that combined the Kung-Fu Master style with gunplay like Rolling Thunder, Shinobi, Robocop, etc. all owe a ton to Takashi Nishiyama's Kung-Fu Master, which eventually led him to create Street Fighter and Fatal Fury and revolutionize the fighting game genre. Kung-Fu is simple by later 80s standards for the genre, but it's still an amazingly fun game that can also be unforgiving too if make mistakes. Now, you are not going to mistake the 2600 version for the arcade or ports to more powerful systems, but it still really holds its own. It looks great, sounds good, and plays well enough. I think it's a good port considering the arcade hardware for this is obviously massively more powerful. Is it as good as the great NES and amazing 7800 port? No. But, man, I would have loved to have had this game (I sadly didn't even get the NES port, though my uncle rented it a few times while we were visiting).

[MikeC-pstc]

Kung Fu in the Arcade was always a must! Another one of those games at the Laundromat that took the quarters I would find in hidden areas! lol. I would have absolutely owned the 2600 version, someone had some passion to make the game look and play great!

I agree on it not being a forgiving game if you make mistakes, it is almost as if you make one mistake it knew your nerves would get the best of you and would bump up the intensity. I am pretty sure my emotions after playingwould equate to what we call today... A Rage Quit.... lol

[baronhausenpheffer]

Awesome port for the 2600! That console didn't have many side-scrollers, and this one turned out great. Also, is it me, or do all of the villains in the arcade version sound like they have bicycle horns installed in their faces when you punch them? Maybe that's why they're angry and turned to evil, LOL.

[juststatedtheobvious]

The 2600 version ruined me.

The rich, deep color. The elegant minimalism of the temple. The graphics and sound that are far ahead of nearly every other game in the library...

And none of that carries over to the other ports. Everywhere else this game lands, it's average at best. Even the NES carries a crude cartoonish make-over. And the original arcade? Those delicate watercolors really don't match the game's theme. And there's so many wasted pixels.

Sure, the 2600 can't compete on a technical level. And every boss looks the same, due to the limited cart space. Even the shallow gameplay is compromised - the dropkick is sorely missed, and you'll be punished for every mistake. But it's a luxury experience. It shouldn't even exist in the first place, much less be done this well.