Blast from the Past: Kung-Fu on MSX

Long before we met Mortal Combat and Street Fighter, there was a game on MSX, perhaps one of the earliest fighting/martial arts games, by the name of Kung Fu. I almost forgotten all about it then one day it just passed through my memory and I began searching my list of roms for it. The name wasn’t Kung Fu, it was Yie Ar Kung-Fu which is why it took me a while to locate it.

The game is so much fun! With the very distinctive soundtrack playing in the background it was almost too easy to play it. You first go against this guy, Wang, with a stick, . Didn’t take long to knock him off at all.

Next comes the fat Tao which spits fire balls in your direction. He was out cold before he knew what was going on. Poor Tao.

Next is a bonus stage where you practise your fighting skills by hitting pots, vases, bricks, and what looks exactly like an Alladin’s lamp!

After the bonus I was up to this bearded bald fighter who can hit you from a far with a metal chain. Chen was vicious but I won!

Next I was up against little Lang who shot those Ninja thingies. What are they called by the way?

And when she was defeated, she fell down ever so gracefully like the lady she is! Sorry Lang.

And last but not least you come upon this Genie of the lamp look a like! The name is Wu and the guy can fly like a, well, Genie, all the way to where you are standing and hits you over and over until you succemb.

Wu took a very, very, long time to defeat but I did! Wondering what the prize was after defeating all the fighters in the game.

There is not prize. The game just repeats again starting from with the background in blue instead of red. I suppose the game goes on endlessly.

Kung-Fu was one of my favorite fighting games and the very first one I’ve ever played back in the 80′s on my MSX computer. The sountrack is memorable and its probably why the game suddenly popped into my head. I remember the sountrack before I remembered the game!

Do you remember Kung-Fu?