China Warrior

Get a load of this guy! The Kung Fu (later named China Warrior) plays pretty much exactly how you would expect it by looking at the pictures. And that is very, VERY poorly!

The character model is HUGE. I mean, my god, he's HUGE!! Your character easily takes up a quarter of the screen as he walks across China, punching and kicking men in cult-inspired robes (not to mention various un-identifiable flying creatures). It really feels as though he is walking across the whole of China, too, as the gameplay in this one is painfully slow. There is no back story for this guy; at least, not one that I could ascertain. I guess China is simply overrun with men in robes, and the China Warrior ain't havin' none of that, so he roams the county kicking the crap out of them. Eventually you come across an equally huge character, and the two of you slowly fight to the death; the victor getting to continue roaming the land.

I read a review online that praised this game as a truly great TurboGrafx title. The game, as the review suggests, becomes extremely fun of you play it through at least the first level. Well, three levels in I suddenly felt as though I've wasted my entire life with all these video games, turned off the TurboGrafx, curled into a little ball, and wept uncontrollably. This game is terrible, no matter what anybody says.

The controls are responsive enough, but you never really feel as though you have complete control of your giant, pixilated warrior. His punches are hard to time, but his kicks extend him another half the length of the screen, so I simply kicked everything I saw to death, which works extremely well. But when one method works so much better than the other, it makes for a very boring experience. I cannot recommend this game to anyone - not even the guy who thought it was so great. It's really only worth seeing one time, just to get a look at that giant character.