Criminally Overlooked Games #12: Best of the Best Karate

Lets get a few things out of the way before we continue - this is Kickboxing, not Karate, and yes that is a SNES game box. I couldn't find a Genesis one. Oh,and the release date was actually 1993. Let's ignore that, shall we?

Moving on, Best of the Best Championship Karate, the natural evolution of Andre' Panza's Kickboxing for Turbografx 16, and Amiga. It was released for a wide variety of systems, but never truly embraced. The game had nice graphics digitized from motion capture of Andre' Panza himself, nice sound effects and inoffensive if sparse music.

It has it's bad points. Most often talked about is it's unique control system, but many people don't realize it was adapted to work with two buttons only. Based on this it succeeds fairly well at delivering precision though the input does tend to be a bit sticky feeling. There is only one single player mode, but it has various training regimens, the ability to customize your look and assign attacks from a pool of 55 available moves in any configuration you see fit, it even has a few surprises along the way. The opponents you face vary in stats and the moves they favor, and act intelligently enough to give you a decent challenge. The multiplayer is basically the same as single, but given the material I couldn't guess what other options could have been added.

The game features an innovative fighting system with various reactions and damages based where and when a hit occurs, an interesting counter system and even has super attacks. The system may be intimidating for a new player, but allows for both comebacks and lightning quick knockouts.

It could use better controls and bells and whistles, but there was no finer full contact mixed martial arts simulation for the time.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• andre
• panza
• electro
• brain
• best
• kickboxing
• karate
• criminally
• overlooked
• games
• big
• bang
• blitz
• video
• game
• Loricel

[masteriansun]

wheres Eric Roberts?

[BigBangBlitz]

Apparently on tv's "The young and the restless".

[YoMommaStalker]

Just playing this game now, The 5th guy on the street by the name "Warrior" is giving me an f'n hard time. lol love this game.

[BigBangBlitz]

Awesome! There are some moves that tend to do better against the CPU. Try the backhand, Uppercut, Shin kick, and mid-roundhouse to wreck that guy.

[YoMommaStalker]

@BigBangBlitz Yeah , I used the same combinations myself cause they strike fast. I beat Hammer after a few tries. Then it was easy to destroy the remaining fighters. Now I'm down to the last guy , I think his names Cogneur. Damn 99% all stats. haha.

[BigBangBlitz]

Yeah, he's a legitimate challenge.Even massive natural combos don't take him down.

[JUARITOSWAY]

The best fighting game for a 16 bit console. period.

[Nite2727]

the animation is crazy for a snes game

[RAYXNUM1]

I remember buying this game when I was very young, it never work on my 486 :( ,but at least whatching the vid I can get the idea.

[StarFoxAutobot]

This game needs music during the actual fights.

[x5deadlyvenoms]

i found this game at a Goodwill resale shop in Texas. still have the cartridge. rockin.

[TheAllin1der]

This used to be my favorite game.

[MagronesBR]

I had Best of The Best for SNES. And I don't remember they're using gloves at Kumite.

[stufaman]

A beautifully crafted game.

[666FrankBooth666]

Sweep the leg!

[xanadujin]

Offensive music, LOL.  Yes, it is.

[2010Barbon]

Used to play this for hours on end as a kid while watching Kickboxer on my VCR and think I was Tong Po! LOL LOL!

[RokuroCarisu]

With a six buttons control system like SSF2 (and maybe the title changed from karate to kickboxing), I think this game could have been a success.