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Game of The Week
Yie Ar Kung-Fu - by Patrick Turner

I remember my friend Duane from the 8^th grade coming into math class one day, and brimming with enthusiasm almost yelling it out, "Dude! You have got to walk over to the Handi-Hut (actually, we called it the 'Handi-Slut' � you know how 8^th grade boys are) after school and play this new game!"
"What's it called?" I asked.
"It's 'something-something Kung-Fu' and you play this kung-fu fighter and you've gotta fight all these people. It's awesome."

The "something-something" of course turned out to be none other than Yie Ar Kung-Fu. No one knew what the "Yie Ar" meant, if indeed it meant anything. I just assumed it was an English phonetic spelling of a Japanese phrase, and pretty soon no one cared.

It wasn't long until several of us were routinely skipping lunch and saving our money; after all, eating is secondary to Yie Ar Kung-Fu.

Karate Champ screenshot
Karate Champ
This was one of the first head-to-head fighting games. Data East's Karate Champ had been released the year before, but people wanted something different from the constant fighting of identical twins that it depicted. I was also tired of trying to hit that damn charging bull. The only thing that changed in Karate Champ was the scenery. In Yie Ar Kung-Fu the scenery changes but once. The first five opponents are fought out in the open in front of a waterfall. I remember how amazed we all were that the waterfall actually moved!

Yie Ar Kung-Fu screenshot The scenery in Yie Ar Kung-Fu may not change much, but your character (Oolong) will face lots of different enemies throughout the game to keep things interesting. The first enemy is a big, fat, unarmed man that can fly through the air at head level. I soon figured out that you can get him trapped at one edge of the screen and beat him with repeated punches to his ample gut for a "perfect" round (a round where you don't get hit). We were again amazed to hear the computer voice say � you guessed it � "Perfect!" A perfect round on Buchu (the first opponent) will net you 10,000 bonus points, a perfect round with the second opponent (Star) gets you 20,000 and so on.

The second opponent is the aforementioned Star with her pink jumpsuit and throwing stars to match. The one-paragraph blurb of "history" that is included in Konami Arcade Classics mentions that Yie Ar Kung-Fu "featured a female enemy fighter�probably the industry's first." Note that they say "probably." It makes you wonder why they are uncertain.

There are actually two female enemy fighters, Star and Fan. Fan comes in the second "wave" of opponents. She has the curious ability to fling fans high into the air and then have them come down and skim the ground at knee or head level. Fan is one of the easier opponents to defeat and it's not difficult to score a Perfect round and an 80,000-point bonus.

Speaking of easy opponents, this brings us to the most peculiar (and frustrating) part of this game, the difficulty. The first four opponents are not especially difficult after some practice, but each is harder to beat than the last. It might take a beginner several tries to get past the fourth one (Pole). However the fifth round is something called "Feedle" and it consists of several goons coming at you from each side. One hit and they go flying off the screen. It's quite a simple matter to kick the first eight and end the round, which begins a new screen of enemies and a new background.

Enemies

Yie Ar Kung-Fu screenshot The second wave has one more enemy than the last (six total). The first four are Chain, Club, Fan and Sword, each fighting with that respective weapon. They require a little practice, but soon it's not hard to beat all of them easily. Now back to the peculiarity I mentioned. The fifth guy is Tonfun and he fights, of course, with Tonfa. Tonfa are what you likely call "side handle batons." Anyway, Tonfun is very difficult to beat. I've played this game hundreds of times and can easily score 200,000 points, but I can only get past tonfun about once every ten tries. The very last enemy is called Blues and he's basically a clone of you. I've faced Blues only a few times and was heartily thrashed each time. I've never gotten past Blues, but people who have tell me that the game just starts over at Buchu.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu screenshot The controls are smooth except for one thing. Sometimes it's difficult to perform the high jump to the side and you end up just jumping up and down. There are 16 total moves including the devastating crouch-down-and-punch-the-other-guy's-foot maneuver. The simple side-kick and middle punch are just about all you need though if you're like me you'll find yourself trying the do-the-splits-and-punch-the-other-guy's-nuts move just because you can. While you can't remove anyone's spine or shoot magical fireballs, this just adds to the charm.

Yie Ar Kung-Fu is the one of the earliest fighting games and definitely still one of the best. If you've never played it, do yourself a huge favor and check it out. And if you figure out how to beat Tonfun, be sure to pass it along.

Download the: Arcade Yie Ar Kung-Fu ROM

Emulator used: MAME

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