A Test Of Endurance
HIGH Feeling like a kung fu movie star.
LOW The long grind before getting to that feeling.
WTF The old guy running around in his underwear.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com.
One of my favorite kung fu movie tropes is seeing the main character versus a seemingly-endless wave of enemies. The thrill of using everything the environment has to offer paired with the mastery of fighting is always pure spectacle. Karate Survivor aims to capture that specific thrilling moment and puts players in the center of it.
In this survival auto-firing roguelite, players fight a horde of enemies and try to survive as long as possible, similar to something like Vampire Survivors. The character will level up as they defeat foes, and each level grants some type of reward. These buffs range from things like a passive boost to damage or health, or perhaps a new combat move that players can use in that run. If players survive long enough, a boss will appear for a showdown.
At the beginning of each level, players will start with a randomly-selected strike. Red moves are normally more powerful, blue moves have longer reach, and yellow moves tend to have status effects like bleeding or stun. As players progress, they’ll obtain up to a total of six moves that will auto-trigger every few seconds in an order that the player sets. In an added bit of strategy, strikes of the same color arranged by the player to fire off in succession will have a combo effect and cause increased damage.
Between each run, players can use currency they gain from defeating enemies to unlock general upgrades that persist from run to run, including things like faster movement speed, higher starting health, or greater strike reach.
Overall, Karate Survivor is a fairly straightforward title. However, it took a significant amount of time before I reached the desired point of feeling like an action movie star. Mostly this is due to players having minimal options in each level at the start, and so much of what makes an action movie is movement in the fights like sliding under barriers, rolling over tables, or kicking doors open. These movement options are here, but they’re locked behind achievements. Some of these are fairly easy to obtain by doing things like defeating 25 enemies to unlock the ability to kick objects, but anything unlocked isn’t available until after the current run.
Another rough edge for me was that it can be a bit tricky to find the right position to hit enemies since strikes don’t always target directly in front of the player — Unlike Vampire Survivors’ wide array of offensive options, Karate is mostly about melee combat, so enemies need to be much closer in order to hit them. There are some ranged options like finding a melee weapon or kicking a box into enemies, but players will generally find themselves quite close to enemies, so being able to stay close enough to hit enemies without being hit is a tricky balance. Having said all that, Karate Survivor starts to show its mettle after a few hours. Once the movement abilities and some of the intricate mechanics become unlocked, the action really opens up.
Ultimately, I found that Karate Survivor scratched the right itch for me, even if it took a while to get there. I wish some of the mechanics were unlocked sooner so the first runs didn’t feel so bland, but it definitely remains a recommendation for those who don’t mind putting in a couple of hours to get to the good stuff.
For me, Karate Survivor gets 7 roundhouse kicks to the face out of 10.
Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Alawar. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 8 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: This game is not currently rated through the ESRB. Players will be using martial arts, improvised weapons like a plank of wood or lead pipe, and occasionally special weapons like a shotgun to defeat endless waves of enemies. There is no blood when enemies are defeated, no sexual content, and no dialogue other than grunts of pain.
Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is text in-game, but the text is not resizable. Audio is not needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible.
Controls: Controls are not remappable, and there is no control diagram. Players can use WASD, Arrow keys, or the control stick to move the player character in the arena. They can use the same controls to move between which rewards they want to select on level up, and confirm with either “A” or “Space”. When moving strikes around in the action bar, “A” or “Space” will select the move, and the control stick or Z/C will move the strike left and right.
While Sonic and Street Fighter were great places to start, his first love was Final Fantasy X when his dad bought a PS2. Ever since, that love for gaming has evolved -- there are a number of game worlds out there, and he intends to explore them all. RPG to horror, platformers to casual and everything in between -- if it’s available, he’ll play it.
While his time is short between writing reviews, tabletop gaming, and attempting to start a cheesecake business, he has caught all 806 pokemon and can speedrun Star Fox 64 in less than 40 minutes. He’s always looking for new things to try and new challenges to conquer. You can find him on Twitter -- @eugene_sax.
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