 So, last year we did our first retro dojo episode and we covered the video game Karate Champ that was released in the arcade and on the Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s. That was a game I grew up with and it kind of helped spur my love for the martial arts because it had all sorts of crying moves in it and it got me excited. Now another game I grew up with that I want to cover today is Kung Fu, also on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Now Kung Fu is definitely a classic and while Karate Champ might not be as fondly remembered or even of age as well, Kung Fu was different. This was a very famous game, a very popular game growing up. Most kids who grew up in the 80s played this at some point, and we've had requests to cover this so I thought this is a good time to talk about it. Now also, we did the Karate Champ episode, we actually filmed it in VHS, we really went for that retro look and it's something fun just to film an episode in VHS. Or not doing that this time, that was kind of a one-time gimmick only because the process of filming an episode in VHS reminded us of why we stopped using VHS to begin with. So those glitches that you see in there were real, and getting it out of the camera to the computer was a process in its own. So that was kind of a fun thing we did but no, we're not doing VHS this time around. So what makes this game so fun? Basically, it's incredibly simple to play, it's easy to learn and it's very responsive. Karate Champ was not known for its play control, it actually had a ton of moves for being a Nintendo game with just two buttons, there was a lot of combinations you could do, but it wasn't as responsive, it was clunky and it was hard to control and it turned off a lot of players. So in contrast, Kung Fu was locked on and incredibly responsive in terms of play control. You only had a couple of moves that you could perform, but they were satisfying and extremely effective. The game also just throws hordes of enemies at you, so timing and priority become a big part of the challenge and a big part of the fun gameplay. The game features a very simple story. You play as Thomas, a martial artist who's seeking out to rescue his girlfriend Sylvia, who has been kidnapped by a gang leader by the name of Mr. X. Thomas must traverse the five floors of Devil's Temple, fight it off a variety of henchmen and eventually a boss in front of a stairway. Upon defeating the boss, Thomas may then proceed to the next floor. Very simple gameplay but totally addictive and very easy to get into. Now there's a few different enemies that you're going to face in this game. The first one is the basic ones are generic thugs called grippers, who basically run at you and they just grab you while your energy drains. If you don't hit them right away, you're going to want to shake them off as fast as possible to prevent your health from draining too much. Then you have Tomtoms, these little acrobats that run and often jump at you with a cannonball attack. These little jerks are real pain sometimes. Then you have the knife throwers. They aren't too bad and the knives are pretty easy to dodge and they either throw high or low, but they can become tedious to fight while you're being sworn by other enemies. Then you have dragon balls that will fall from the ceiling and if they hit the floor they burst to become full-sized angry dragons and I think we can all relate to how annoying that can be. Additionally you're going to have to contend with snakes, moths and exploding confetti balls. Now I would love to see the look on the architect's face when you saw the plans of the sample and it was like, you want what? Bosses of each floor are the stick fighter, the boomerang fighter, the giant, the black magician and finally Mr. X, who I always thought looked like an 8-bit Dennis Leary. Now the gameplay itself is as simple as the enemy names and it honestly does not take a massive amount of effort to get through the game, so it's a great play if you want to get into some quick action for like a half hour or so. But for those of you who want more replay value, the game loops for more challenging playthroughs. Now if I understand correctly, the game will increase in difficulty through the first five playthroughs and after that it becomes an endurance round to see how many times you can loop it. Now the inspiration for this game was originally going to be a supplemental movie tie-in. Originally it was said to be based off of Bruce Lee's 1972 movie, Game of Death, which had a similar setting of the main character ascending five floors of a tower and then fighting a martial arts master at the end of each tower. Later it was decided to be a promotional tie-in into Jackie Chan's Wheels on Meals from 1984. Other than the names of Thomas and Sylvia, there is no similarity to the movie plot. Now Kung Fu was first released as an arcade game called Kung Fu Master but was known as Spartan X in Japan. Now the movie, Wheels on Meals, was also released under the title Spartan X in Japan. It is widely considered to be the first beat-em-up style game and due to its popularity it was then ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System as one of their black box games. The black box games are a part of a collection of 30 launch titles for the NES that had the pixel art cover design against the black boxes. The game was also released on several other home consoles including even the Atari 2600. Now the game was remembered as a retro classic today but even back in its release it was extremely popular to the point where the original developer Irem was making a sequel and called it Beyond Kung Fu Return of the Master. However early testing proved beyond popular so the game was reworked and instead it was released as Vigilante in 1988. The game now took place in an urban setting fighting street gangs with only residual similarity of gameplay. Now on the Game Boy an entirely different sequel showed up in 1990 simply called Kung Fu Master which had a very similar urban setting but different gameplay than Vigilante. In 1991 yet another alternate sequel called Spartan X2 was released exclusively for the Famicom or the Japanese version of the NES. In this version you play the role of a fighter taken on drug lords and street thugs in the game with only the slightest resemblance to the original Kung Fu. So this game definitely lives on in video game history and it's very fondly remembered by those who grew up with it especially if you're a child of the 80s. If you have not played it I definitely recommend giving it a try especially if you're looking for a very simple game but yet very satisfying to play. So thank you so much for watching guys I hope you enjoyed this retro dojo series. If you have any other martial arts video games you'd like us to take a look at or cover please recommend them in the comments below and other than that though you know please like subscribe join us on Patreon. I will be doing a tour soon of my home office for Patreon which includes my extensive NES and video game collection so be sure to check it out. Now in the meantime I'm gonna go kick some dragons. So just for a fun little bonus for our Patreon members out there I'm going to be playing a little bit of Kung Fu 2 which is actually a fan-made unofficial sequel but it's really well done. So if you are a member of our Patreon page you can go check out this episode right now it's an exclusive episode. For our brown belt members and up we have multiple exclusive episodes made just for our Patreon page so if you want some bonus content please definitely go check that out just sign up for it and you'll unlock a whole bunch of extra features. So yeah so if you want to go check out something fun I've never really played this I'm gonna go give this kind of a world right now so if you are one of our members and want to go check it out come visit this on Patreon. Thanks guys see you later.