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Arcade Archives: Karate Blazers
Nov. 28th, 2025 09:09 amThis week's Arcade Archives release is... Karate Blazers (Video System, 1991)
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No ACA2 release this time, which means it's back to the old UI / feature set and no PS5 / Switch 2 / Xbox Series release, sorry! You do get both the Japanese and English releases though, and the Preference Settings allow you to adjust game speed and keep a counter of how many enemies you've defeated on-screen, plus the Button Settings allow you to assign the shoulder charge (usually Jump Kick + Left / Right) to a single button.
The Karate Blazers are hitting the streets for revenge! Four students of the deadliest martial arts this side of Hokuto Shin Ken- Mark the nomadic mercenary (this's the finishing blow!), Glen the invincible wrestler (with thunderous fists!), Gil the mysterious fighter (what's justice to him?) and Akira the passionate ninja (with a blundering personality, aw~)- are out to avenge their slain master, recover the scrolls with their secret karate techniques and rescue his kidnapped daughter from the bad guys! (There's really not a lot to work with here outside a wordless intro and the European flyer so I, uh, had to improvise a little). Each of the four Karate Blazers have a deadly array of moves, from low sweeps to fancy jump attacks, as well as their unique secret techniques that knock down enemies around them at the cost of some health (or for free if you can find one of the stolen scrolls!). Hundreds of enemies await the Blazers on their way to the enemy stronghold... Can they avenge their fallen master?
Oh this game is weird! This comes to us from the post-Final Fight era of scrolling brawlers but feels a bit closer to Konami's contributions to the genre, with smaller sprites like Crime Fighters or Vendetta, no enemy health bars outside of bosses and a very loose feeling to combat. The controls are also strange, with kicks as your attack at far range and punches at close range, plus your jump button is actually a jump kick button with you automatically attacking both in front and behind you when you use it, plus a shoulder charge if you tap a direction just after the jump kick button. There's a few other interesting additions like on-the-ground attacks similar to Crime Fighters (the positioning is awkward but kicking enemies while they're down can often send them flying and back on the ground again) and the sweep which is good for knocking enemies down, but there's a lot of things that just feel odd. When you knock enemies down, they fly up into the air first so you have to wait a lot longer than you'd expect for them to land, some enemies can dodge just about everything you throw at them outside of the grab (which doesn't even lead to a throw, just a close-range gut attack) and just in general combat feels very loose and strange. It's unmistakably Video System though, with some excellent animations (especially for the traditional scrolling brawler walking sprites, so many frames) and it has a goofy atmosphere to it... It's definitely not a traditional scrolling brawler and it's got some interesting ideas from a time when the genre was still evolving in the wake of Final Fight, so it's worth a look.
And yes, Karate Blazers is part of the Video System Cinematic Universe- Gil and Glen (alongside a new character, Glinda) are playable in Aero Fighters 3!
