Developer: Hudson Publisher: NEC Released: October 1989 Genre: Beat ’em up
China Warrior is a piss poor game and one of the worst in the Turbo Grafx-16 library. But you would not know that based on its marketing. When the system was first brought overseas NEC went hard in their marketing. China Warrior was compared to Kung Fu on the NES in its marketing and in a direct comparison it comes out favorably. Once you pick up the controller however it is apparent the NES game is better. That leaves you with a rudimentary brawler that fails at every level. This one is bad.
China Warrior’s entire selling point is its visuals. At first glance they are indeed impressive. The character sprites are some of the largest outside of the arcade. Large sprites were something the TG-16 excelled at so it makes sense they led with that. The novelty of the sprites wears off pretty fast though. The animation is subpar and stiff. The backgrounds are repetitive; technically there are twelve levels. In reality there are only four as each is palette swapped three times. This repetition extends to the bosses as well. You will fight the same four bosses multiple times, including not Jackie Chan and totally not Bruce Lee. I am sure many were duped into buying this based on its commercials and received a rude awakening when they played it.
As a side scrolling brawler Wang has very few moves. You can punch, kick, and perform an awkward jump kick. The game is an auto-scroller, with your forward movement never stopping unless you crouch. The goal of each level is to fight generic monks and dodge all manner of obstacles such as arrows, knives, rocks, and bees. At the end of each stage is a one on one boss battle. The game follows this formula for its entire length with no deviation and sadly has massive flaws at all levels.
The same huge sprites that garnered the game some attention ultimately ruin it. The sprites take up half the screen, leaving little room to dodge, weave, or perform any action comfortably outside of basic punches and kicks. There is some nuance to the gameplay in that obstacles approach at varying heights and you must determine whether to duck or slap them away. But in practice they come so fast you have little time to react. It starts out ridiculous in the first level and only gets worse as you progress. Hit detection is also poor at times, most notably during boss fights. These have major problems of their own.
The boss battles should have been the game’s highlight. Each fight is like a mini Street Fighter match except with two gimps. The hit detection makes it difficult to land hits on the insanely aggressive computer. Your flurry of punches and kicks frequently miss, meanwhile the computer can and will slap you around in seconds. There honestly is no strategy to these battles, all you can do is force your way in and hope for the best. Technically you can block attacks and unleash a special move that can decimate the AI but these are so finicky to execute they might as well not exist. It sucks as the bosses, who include a Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan clone, are pretty cool. But you will dread every encounter if you make it that far.
China Warrior is an aggressively difficult game from the start. Traps and other mechanisms spawn suddenly and you will always take a hit the first time. There is a heavy trial and error component to the game that is tedious rather than intriguing. The mindless repetition of every level is grating; the four main stages are split in three but they only reshuffle their mechanics. Sometimes you even fight the same boss three times in a row! The game does not refill your health between levels which is madness. If, for some god forsaken reason you stick with it, the final levels reach a level of insanity that I am sure the designers did not want anyone to finish the game.
In Closing
China Warrior is an absolutely awful game with no redeeming qualities. Bad graphics, terrible gameplay combine to create one of the worst games of all time. You couldn’t pay me to play through this again.
