Code Like It's 198x

Kung-Fu Master

Irem's 1984 walk through a temple of fighters

Classic GamesSource-checked

Irem's 1984 arcade game sent Thomas up five floors of a temple, kicking and punching through a stream of henchmen, to rescue his girlfriend Sylvia. Designed by Takashi Nishiyama and tied in with a Jackie Chan film in Japan, where it was called Spartan X, it is usually named as the first scrolling beat 'em up. Nintendo brought it to the NES as Kung Fu; in Britain U.S. Gold's conversions were panned on the Spectrum and liked on the Commodore 64.

In Kung-Fu Master the hero, Thomas, walks along a corridor and the enemies keep coming: men who grab hold of him and sap his strength, knife throwers, small fighters who somersault at his head. At the end of each floor of the temple a master blocks the stairs, and at the top, on the fifth floor, his girlfriend Sylvia is held prisoner. Irem released it in the arcades in 1984, and later writers usually name it as the first scrolling beat ’em up. A British developer remembered being nervous of the machine at first, “because the characters were so big on-screen and the action moved at such a pace that the player had a split second to time his moves.”

Fast facts

  • Developer: Irem; sold in America by Data East under licence.
  • Released: arcades, 1984.
  • Designer: Takashi Nishiyama, who went on to Street Fighter at Capcom and Fatal Fury at SNK.
  • Japanese title: Spartan X, after the Jackie Chan film of that name.
  • Home versions: Kung Fu on the NES, from Nintendo; Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC from U.S. Gold in Britain; Commodore 64 and Apple II from Data East in America; Atari 7800.

A film and a pagoda

In Japan the game was called Spartan X, and it was released to tie in with the 1984 Jackie Chan film of the same name, known in English as Wheels on Meals. The film has no temple in it, though. Wireframe says the game was first inspired by Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, in which Lee fights his way up a pagoda, meeting a different master on each floor. That is the shape of Kung-Fu Master: five floors, five bosses, “all with different fighting styles”, as one player remembered it for Edge in 2003, “just like being Bruce Lee in Game of Death”.

Its designer was Takashi Nishiyama, who had made Moon Patrol for Irem two years earlier. Wireframe credits him with Kung-Fu Master and notes where he went next: to Capcom, where he started the Street Fighter series, and then to SNK, where he started Fatal Fury.

How it plays

Computer and Video Games described the new coin-op in April 1985. Thomas, “a whirling, kicking, jumping, fighting machine controlled in his anger by an eight-way joystick”, has to “kick and punch his way through hordes of the Devil’s hatchetmen”, while the energy bar falls with every blow he takes. The magazine liked its speed: “The pace of the game is very fast and the illusion of speed is enhanced by a catchy jingle.”

He can jump, crouch and strike high or low. As Zzap!64 noticed in the home version, he stays in the middle of the screen while the corridor scrolls past him, and the henchmen walk in from both sides. The ones who get hold of him drain his energy until he shakes them off, and knife throwers need two blows.

The temple has traps as well as fighters. The Spectrum version’s CRASH review lists them: globes that hover at head height and burst into shrapnel, vases that drop from the ceiling and release snakes, and yellow balls that break open to reveal fire-breathing dragons. Each floor has a time limit, and the guardian at its end, “from giants to boomerang-wielding felons”, in CRASH’s words, must be beaten before Thomas can climb the stairs. Free Sylvia and the game starts again from the ground floor, with more enemies.

Wireframe summed up its place in 2019: it “asks little more of the player than to time their kicks and punches”, but it was “a vital first blow in a rapidly-evolving genre”. Its hero could only walk left and right along a single line. Moving up and down the screen, being surrounded and picking up weapons came later, with Technos’s Renegade and Double Dragon. Computer and Video Games was still careful in 1996, calling it “THE FIRST scrolling beat ’em up (correct us if we’re wrong)”.

On the NES

Nintendo published the game for its own console: Spartan X on the Famicom in Japan in June 1985, and Kung Fu on the NES. It was among the games Nintendo sold with the NES when the machine went on test sale in New York in October 1985, and it was still on British price lists in 1991, at £19.99.

Conversions for home computers

In Britain U.S. Gold published the home computer versions in 1986, and the reviews split by machine.

  • Commodore 64: the first out, in March 1986, at £9.95 on cassette and £14.95 on disk, from U.S. Gold and the American publisher Datasoft. Zzap!64 gave it 79%. One reviewer found the graphics “very splodgy” but the game “great fun to play”: “The smack of flesh against flesh is most convincing and quite satisfying.” To switch between kicks and punches, players pressed the space bar. In Computer and Video Games’ chart for April 1986 it was a new entry at number two, behind Yie Ar Kung-Fu.
  • Spectrum: CRASH gave it 56% in August 1986 and called it “a very poor conversion from the arcade game”, complaining of “the most awful flicker” and colour clash that made it “hard to tell what is going on”. Sinclair User thought it “one of US Gold’s conveyor-belt conversions”, “a routine conversion from the C64”, and too dear at £7.95.
  • Amstrad CPC: Amtix! gave it 71% in August 1986.

In America Data East sold its own Commodore 64 and Apple II versions in 1986, advertising a battle “through the five dangerous floors in the wizard’s castle to rescue the captive fair maiden”. Absolute Entertainment released an Atari 7800 cartridge in 1989.

Later years

In 1996 Irem licensed its early arcade games for the PlayStation and Saturn, and the Japanese publisher Imax put Spartan X on a collection with Zippy Race and 10-Yard Fight. Edge, reviewing Irem Arcade Classics, called it “a fast moving and very tough reaction-tester” and the best game on the disc, and reminded its readers that most would know it as Kung-Fu Master, “the grandfather of the scrolling beat ’em up genre”.

Sources

  • Computer and Video Games issue 42, April 1985, p. 92: arcade column (Thomas, Sylvia on the fifth floor, a master on each floor, the Devil’s hatchetmen, the joystick, the pace and the jingle). Issue 54, April 1986: software chart, Kung Fu Master a new entry at number two on the Commodore 64. Issue 174, May 1996, p. 112: “THE FIRST scrolling beat ’em up (correct us if we’re wrong)”.
  • Wireframe issue 32, February 2020, pp. 40–41: arcade release in 1984, the tie-in with Jackie Chan’s Spartan X, Game of Death as the first inspiration, Sylvia, Nishiyama’s later Street Fighter and Fatal Fury.
  • Wireframe issue 18, July 2019, pp. 51–52, “Remembering Irem”: Kung-Fu Master as Nishiyama’s early fighting game, “a vital first blow in a rapidly-evolving genre”.
  • Retro Gamer issue 22, 2005, p. 57: “In Japan, Kung Fu Master was called Spartan X, capitalising on the 1984 Jackie Chan film of the same name.”
  • Edge issue 124, June 2003: a player’s recollection (five bosses, Game of Death, the space bar on the Commodore 64).
  • Edge issue 91, December 2000, p. 121: a Team Soho developer remembers the arcade game (the size of the characters, the split-second timing, Mr X’s henchmen).
  • Zzap!64 issue 9, January 1986, p. 91: Datasoft’s forthcoming Commodore 64 conversion. Issue 11, March 1986, p. 31: review, U.S. Gold/Datasoft, prices, the space-bar control, the scrolling, the grabbers and knife throwers, 79%.
  • CRASH issue 31, August 1986, pp. 16–17: Spectrum review (the traps, the time limit, the guardians, the loop back to the first floor, 56%).
  • Sinclair User issue 54, September 1986, p. 56: Spectrum review (“conveyor-belt conversions”, £7.95).
  • Amtix! issue 10, August 1986, p. 28: Amstrad CPC review, 71%.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 34, January 1987, p. 35: Data East USA advertisement (Commodore 64 and Apple II; “Irem Corp. Mfd. under license by Data East USA”).
  • Atarian vol. 1 no. 2, July 1989, p. 2: Absolute Entertainment advertisement for its Atari 7800 cartridges, including Kung-Fu Master.
  • Mean Machines issue 8, May 1991, p. 79: mail-order price list, Kung Fu on the NES at £19.99.
  • Edge issue 31, April 1996, p. 72, and issue 35, August 1996, p. 104: Irem’s back catalogue licensed for PlayStation and Saturn; review of Irem Arcade Classics.
  • “Kung-Fu Master (video game)”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): Spartan X on the Famicom, 21 June 1985; Wheels on Meals as the English title of the film; the pagoda of Game of Death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung-Fu_Master_(video_game)
  • “Kung Fu (1985)”, Nintendo Life (web, secondary): the NES version, released 18 October 1985. https://www.nintendolife.com/games/nes/kung_fu

See also

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