Karate Blazers brings four-player arcade brawling to Switch and PS4 this week
Hamster Corporation continues its weekly retro preservation efforts with Karate Blazers, a 1991 beat 'em up from Video System. Now available on Switch and PS4, the game features four-player local co-op and the standard suite of Arcade Archives enhancements.
It is Thursday, which means Hamster Corporation has once again dipped into the bottomless well of coin-op history to bring us another Arcade Archives release. This week, the spotlight falls on Karate Blazers, a 1991 beat 'em up from Video System that might just fill a gap for those tired of Final Fight reruns.
Credit: Arcade Archives
Originally released in arcades during the golden age of the side-scrolling brawler, Karate Blazers (known as Tōshin Blazers in Japan) has always been something of a B-tier cult favourite. It never quite reached the dizzying heights of Capcom's heavy hitters, but it differentiates itself with a distinct anime aesthetic and, crucially, support for up to four players simultaneously. That feature alone makes it a compelling option for a chaotic evening on the sofa, provided you can gather enough controllers.
The premise is standard fare for the genre. You select from four martial arts masters (Mark, Glen, Akira, and Gil), each possessing a unique "killing blow" technique, and set off to rescue a master's kidnapped daughter while retrieving secret scrolls. It is not Shakespeare, but it does not need to be. The combat is punchy, the sprites are large, and the action is frenetic enough to distract you from the slightly derivative level design.
As with all Arcade Archives releases, Hamster has not just dumped the ROM and run. The release includes the usual suite of modern conveniences. You can tweak difficulty settings to make the quarter-munching difficulty more palatable, and fiddle with display settings to mimic the scanlines of a CRT monitor. For the competitive sorts, the online leaderboards are present for both the standard High Score Mode and the time-attack Caravan Mode.
It is available now on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 storefronts for $7.99. While it might not rewrite the history books, Karate Blazers offers a solid slice of 1991 arcade action that has been relatively difficult to play legally on home consoles until now. If you have a penchant for obscure brawlers and three friends to hand, it is worth a look.
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