The Way of the Exploding Fist Game Comparison
Released: 1985
Genre: Fighting
Publisher: Melbourne House
Game mode: Single Player and Two Players (Simultaneous)
The Way of the Exploding Fist, one of the most awesome titles in the history of gaming? I think so! It was developed by Beam Software (The team who made the Horace series), it was published under the Melbourne House studio.
The guys behind this 1985 fighter are Bruce Bayley, Gregg Barnett and David Johnston, the game is a series of one-on-one karate matches, overseen by a wise expert who features in the background.
PLAYING THE WAY OF THE EXPLODING FIST
The game features a single player mode and a 2 player mode where you can pit yourself against another human player, rather than the energy bars that feature in later one-on-one fighters, in this game you must reach 2 points (two yin-yangs) to win the fight. If the time runs out, the referee decides the winner.
The points scoring system is known as Shobu Nihou Kumite, and is used in many traditional styles of karate. You may know the word Kumite best from the popular 1988 Jean Claude Van Damme movie “Bloodsport”, where the tournament was called Kumite. Cue the 80’s montage martial arts training scene!
After winning 2 fights you move on to the next stage, there are four in total, as you progress you move from “Novice” to “1st Dan” and on from there.
In The Way of the Exploding fist, you must find the correct distance between yourself and the opponent, close enough to attack, but not too close that you get atacked. Button bashing does not work in this game, timing and strategy is the way to win a fight.
DEVELOPMENT
Gregg Barnett had previously converted the two adventures, The Hobbit and Sherlock from Beam Software for the Commodore 64. The Way of the Exploding Fist was heavily influenced by Data East’s Karate Champ, which came out the year before. The C64 version features over 600 sprite images to animate the player movements, a staggering amount for a 1985 fighter.
THE SOUNDTRACK
The soundtrack received high praise too, based on the 1952 orchestral piece, Dance of the Yao People. Interestingly, a NES version was developed by Beam Software but it never saw a release.
Listen to Dance of the Yao People…
GAME PLATFORMS: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, Commodore 16
VIEW THE WAY OF THE EXPLODING FIST GAME BOX ART
TITLE SCREENS FOR THE WAY OF THE EXPLODING FIST
GAMEPLAY SCREENS FOR THE WAY OF THE EXPLODING FIST
COMMODORE 64 VIDEO OF THE WAY OF THE EXPLODING FIST
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What a game. This is the one that really brought the beat em up genre home. I had this first on the ZX Spectrum when it was released. It’s a fantastic game on there. Really nicely detailed and animated sprites. It’s a really close call between the Speccy and the C64. I think I’d go for the Spectrum version given how impressive it is with less resources to work with. The C64 has some really annoying sound effects too. I used to play it with the sound down as it I couldn’t stand it. 🤣