Yie Ar Kung Fu II vs. Yokai Monk
Current Score: Old Games 10 New Games 14
YIE AR KUNG FU II
(Imagine, 1987)
It seemed that the ‘80s were completely obsessed with karate, kung fu, origami and all things Eastern, both in Hollywood and the gaming world. On the Spectrum, the first big hitter was Way Of The Exploding Fist, followed shortly by Yie Ar Kung Fu, for which Imagine acquired the licence. Apparently its sequel, released a year later, wasn’t actually a Konami arcade game but a title on the MSX, but Imagine held the cards for that too, so a Speccy version was inevitable, not to mention an obviously smart move, as the original YAKF was a bit hit all round. Literally.
The problem with big software houses such as Ocean, US Gold and Imagine was that they farmed the work out in various directions, which meant that you were never quite sure if you’d copied a winner or a dud (just my little joke there). They released plenty of great games, no worries there, but also made some lamentable decisions along the way in their haste to rake in the moolah. US Gold had World Cup Carnival most infamously, while Ocean for some time could be relied upon to eff up conversions of any TV series, like Knight Rider, Street Hawk and Miami Vice. Imagine were Ocean in disguise of course, and in this case they seem to have recruited the mysterious James Software to make YAKF2, specifically one Julian Horn. Would this be a wise move, or possibly just a cheap one?
So time has moved on since you last yelled “Yie Ar” while doing kung fu (always adopt a Northern accent when saying the title of that game, it’s fun), 20 years in fact, not the 1 that it might have seemed. The hero of the first game, Oolong, all but wiped out the ‘Chop Suey’ gang allegedly, apart from one survivor, Yen Pei, who has now let the power go to his head and become the Yie Gah Emperor. Oolong’s son, Young Lee, must fight him and his warlords, who each have their own marginally different fighting techniques. Looking at the original game’s instructions, Oolong was just trying to win a competition, a la Enter The Dragon, but never mind, if Imagine want to change history, then let them. “Young Lee has learned his own new techniques, based on oo-long tea power and chow mein noodle power!” the inlay proclaims to a generally embarrassed audience. Maybe move on?
“The game begins with an attack of a squadron of midget fighters.” Oh God, perhaps just ignore the inlay before it offends most of the world’s population. In short, you must avoid things and, erm, small people flying at you from both sides, and try to make progress towards the left of the screen. After the screen has flicked three times (not scrolled, couldn’t afford that) you have a proper fight on your hands. The opponents resemble the first game generally, except big Buchu isn’t here which is a shame, he’s got Covid, he couldn’t make it. And you have to knock them out one by one as you’d expect, with interludes of object and small folk dodging all the while.
As for criticism, it’s hard to know where to start. The game looks pretty bad, the main sprites looking white and vague, moving poorly with uninspiring backgrounds, with the sound barely there at all. As for the gameplay, it’s pretty grim. The first bit, avoiding objects and attacks, is probably the funnest part, as the main fights don’t seem to present much of a challenge at all. Just spam your way through them, don’t worry about altering your approach depending on your combatant. Sometimes they just stand there and do nothing, though possibly my version was bugged, but the general standard is so low, it’s hard to know. Crash rightly gave it 48%, though some insane madmen on Spectrum Computing think it’s worth 6/10 for some unknown reason. Either way it’s not looking good in this particular contest for the Imagine crew.
YOKAI MONK
(Poe Games, 2022)
Quite unintentionally, another Oriental delight has been brought to my attention this week, and it’s Edgar Allan Poe Games’ Yokai Monk. It brings back memories of when my young daughter watched a show on Netflix called Yokai Watch, a Japanese cartoon which was in turns confusing and disturbing, involving fighting evil spirits using your Cassette 50 digital calculator watch. It made Pokemon seem more bearable I suppose, but otherwise my poor brain couldn’t really cope with the disorientating (that’s a pun I’ve borrowed from Siouxsie and the Banshees’ fabbo hit Hong Kong Garden by the way) erm… oddness.
Anyhoo, this game looks a bit more normal by comparison, created by Ariel Endaraues, who gave us Atomicat, The Last Escape and Danterrifik. Oh no, evil demons and spirits (hic) have invaded the hitherto peaceful old monastery, and duffed up all the peaceful old priests. Except one. No, not Kung Fu Panda, Sheng-Li, “an apprentice with incredible power who had mastered the Wandering Spirit technique”. He could project his spirit into the body of his enemy and control them, a bit like the sort of thing that goes on in those Red Raid games. Simply enter them (easy there), take them over and walk them to a spiky death in most cases.
But you’d best do it quick as he can only keep this extraordinary technique going for a little while at a time before his spirit gets too sapped from the effort. As such, hasty decisions often need to be made, and therefore frequent mistakes will happen. The enemies have different abilities, whether it’s jumping, shooting or moving through walls, so it’s a case of seeing how best to manipulate them to see them all off. As the inlay shouts in capital letters “EACH ENEMY IS A WEAPON!”
Through I'm-not-sure-how-many-but-I-reached-number-13-anyway levels, with some very nice audible offerings from Mr. Rancio (not Mr. Rancid as I first thought) accompanying Sheng-Li’s efforts, plenty of fun can be had while exercising the grey matter that’s in there somewhere. Games like this must be great for warding off the onset of Senile Gamer Dementia – a puzzler which also requires quick thinking and some arcade reactions here and there. Not that I’m very good at any of that, but the thought’s there.
LET'S GO TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
BEST GRAPHICS YOKAI MONK
BEST COLOUR YOKAI MONK
BEST SOUND YOKAI MONK
MOST ORIGINAL YOKAI MONK
MOST PLAYABLE YOKAI MONK
MOST ADDICTIVE YOKAI MONK
FINAL SCORE
YIE AR KUNG FU II 0 YOKAI MONK 6
Yokai Monk wins! And YAKF2 very much loses!
Yie Ar Kung Fu must've had summat because I can still remember it over others that were maybe better 🤔 maybe I'm misty eyed and nostalgic and in need of a distalgesic!