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By ZZZ
Created by Konami in the mid 1980's, Yie Ar Kung-Fu (pronounced YEE ER KUNG FOO, meaning "One, Two, Kung-Fu") is arguably the peak of pre-Street Fighter II fighters. At the time, little had been done in fighting games and few people, if anyone, had expectations from the genre.
Although Yie Ar Kung-Fu can be a frustrating game, it made great strides for the one-on-one fighting genre. The few fighting games prior to 1985 featured generic karate or warriors guys fighting each other (see: Karate Champ, Urban Champion, many others.) In contrast, Yie Ar Kung-Fu offered a vast array of unique characters. Many of them are simply huge bald guys with apparent distaste for shirts, but many also had weapons such as throwing stars, nunchakus, and chains. A lot of them are simply named after the weapons they wield, which is just a little silly. Many of them were also inspired by characters in old kung fu movies. However, like most pre-Street Fighter II games, you can only play as a single character, a rather standard looking karate guy. Everyone else are unplayable boss characters.
Since Yie Ar Kung-Fu predated Street Fighter II's standardization of certain gameplay mechanics, it plays quite a bit differently than modern fighters. First off, there's no blocking, at all. You can't control the distance of your jumps either, which means you'll be flying all over the screen whether you like it or not. In the original arcade game, you cannot technically jump and attack, although there are a few commands that are leaping punches and kicks. The health meter is actually just joined blocks that are knocked off one at a time with each hit. Rather than fighting a "best two out of three" matches, you have a number of lives, and when you run out, it's Game Over.
There are two attack buttons: Punch and Kick. Hitting them by themselves will do nothing, as you need to press in a direction to execute an attack. However, there's a unique move for each direction on the joystick - eight directions times two attack buttons equals a total of sixteen separate strikes. There is even a arrow below your playable character that points in whatever direction you are holding. There are no quarter circle motions or anything like that, so it's easy to pick up and play.
Quite possibly the quirkiest aspect of Yie Ar Kung-Fu is the hit detection. Many times, it may look like you're hitting an opponent, but the attack won't register. This is because each attack animation has a very small hitbox. In many cases, if you're standing right on top of an opponent, the only way to hit them is by executing a high kick (down+kick) to smack them in the face, otherwise your punches will go right through them. Additionally, enemies seem to have the ability to temporarily make themselves invulnerable to dodge your attacks and escape from the corner. There's rarely a fair fight to be had in Yie Ar Kung-Fu, as the opponents abilities are always far greater than yours. It doesn't help that the CPU is completely and totally relentless. While tt's remarkably difficult, but it is possible to finish a fight without getting hit. If you pull it off, you'll be congratulated with a digitized voice proclaiming "PERFECT!" and you'll get a score bonus.
There are only a few songs found throughout the game, mostly consisting of Chinese-influenced songs. There are a few digitized grunts, as well as an omniscient voice proclaiming "shi shi" ("thank you" in Chinese.) Each round opens with what sounds like a synthesized gong. It's nothing fancy, but it has its charms.
There are three games in the Yie Ar Kung-Fu series, the first two strangely having the same name, and several ports of each of them.
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu - Arcade / Commodore 64 / Amstrad CPC / ZX Spectrum / BBC Micro / Gameboy Advance / Playstation / Playstation 2 / Nintendo DS / Xbox 360 (1985)
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Flyer
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
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There are two phases of enemies: "Hot Fighting History", which consists of five foes, and "Masterhand History", which consists of six. There are only two backgrounds in the entire game, one for each phase. They look pretty decent though, especially the animated waterfall with the cave background. The character sprites are pretty detailed for such an old games. Whenever any of the male characters are beaten, they fall on their backs, legs twitching in the air. It's pretty comical. To avoid any unladylike showmanship, all of the female characters politely collapse on their sides.
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Oolong
Sporting blue pants and bad hair, Oolong was one of the first playable characters in a fighter that was not a generic "fighter guy". He also has a jumping kick move that seems to have inspired Joe Higashi, and his standing animation was also used by Gen in the original Street Fighter.
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Buchu
Buchu is a bald, shirtless behemoth who can fly. Also has Gen's standing animation.
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Star
Sporting a jumpsuit and ox horns, Star attacks with shurikens. You have to do quite a bit of jumping to avoid these things.
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Nuncha
Nuncha attacks with nunchucks and has bad hair. You will first see his awesome animation in his intro screen. He is so spastic that it is kind of humorous. He also sports a yellow gi based on Bruce Lee's in his never finished movie "Game of Death". He attacks with nunchucks for the same reason.
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Pole
Pole attacks with a bo. He also has bad hair and is also shirtless.
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Feedle
Besides having the individual greatest name ever, Feedle is also one of the most original characters ever in a fighter. He can duplicate himself and walks toward Oolong from both sides of the screen. He is also the easiest enemy to defeat in the game. Feedle wears black pants that have yellow stripes down the sides.
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Chain
Chain sports blue pants and is bald and shirtless. He also attacks with a chain which gives him crazy range and means you are going to have to do quite a bit of jumping here as well. He also has a tattoo of the Chinese word for "death".
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Club
Club is bald and wears green. He also attacks with a bonbori and has a shield. His shield allows him to be the only character in this series who can block.
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Fan
Fan wears a qipao and has her long hair pulled back. She attacks with fans that flutter all over the screen looking like butterflies or birds or whatever.
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Sword
Sword sports bad hair, a beard, and blue clothes. He attacks with a Dao sword.
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Tonfun
Tonfun attacks with two tonfas. He also has bad hair and green clothes.
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Blues
Blues is more or less exactly like Oolong. Except, of course, shirtless. When pronounced in Japanese, his name sounds an awful lot like "Bruce", an obvious tribute to Bruce Lee.
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Bishoo
Bishoo has a big hairstyle and wears what I believe is a Mandarin dress. She also attacks by hurling knives. She's an exclusive for the GBA version.
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Clayman
Clayman is a huge warrior who attacks with a sword and jumps around like a maniac. When he is defeated he crumbles, so I guess he is made of clay? Also found only in the GBA version.
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There were a few ports of this game. The ZX Spectrum version is horrible. The Commodore 64 version is fairly competent but obviously doesn't look as good, and only uses one button. The Amstrad CPC version is decent but lacks Feedle. The BBC Micro version has Feedle hurling objects at Oolong from off screen which he has to dodge, and also lacks Blues, replacing him with a second round against Feedle.
The Gameboy Advance port is part of "Konami Collector's Series: Arcade Advanced". The screen has been shrunk and the status bar made transparent so it can fit on the screen. It's basically a straight port, although the hit detection has been much improved, allowing for a somewhat less frustrating experience. While the music sounds faithful, the voice samples are all gone. Most importantly, it has a cheat code (enter the Konami code at the screen where you can select one or two players) that adds two more characters at the end of the game, as well as an additional background, a bamboo forest. There's also two player mode where you can play every character, although it requires that you link up with another GBA owner.
It also appears on several other compilations. This includes Konami Arcade Classics for the PSOne, Konami Classic Series: Arcade Hits for the DS, and a standalone release, Oretachi Game Center Zoku: Yie Ar Kung-Fu for the Playstation 2, the latter of which is exclusive to Japan. All three are straight emulations of the arcade version, although the DS version offers plenty of dipswitches to tinker around with. It's also available on the Xbox Live Arcade, which features some redrawn graphics like the rest of Konami's classic titles, but otherwise plays identically.
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Arcade)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (GBA)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (GBA)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (GBA)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (GBA)
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Screenshot Comparisons
Yie Ar Kung-Fu - Famicom / MSX / Gameboy / Playstation / Saturn (1985)
MSX Cover
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Famicom)
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Famicom)
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Like many home ports from Konami at the time, Yie Ar Kung-Fu has been changed quite a bit for the home version, despite having the same name. It has the same basic gameplay, but with a severely reduced moveset. The only additions include a jump kick - which is amazingly useful - and the ability to rebound off the wall by jumping into it. There is also only one background. After you beat the "final" boss, you begin the second loop, which features the same arena but with a different color.
The characters in this version are all different from the arcade version, although there are many similarities between the casts.
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Lee
Your playable character in this game. Obviously a crude, 8-bit caricature of Bruce Lee. He has a pretty generic fighting game standing animation.
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Wang
Wang is bald, shirtless, and fights with a stick.
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Tao
Tao can attack with fireballs. Oh, yeah, and he is bald and shirtless.
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Chen
Chen is bald and strangely wears a shirt that only goes over one shoulder. He also attacks with a chain.
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Lang
Lang attacks with ninja stars and sports a jumpsuit and a braided hairstyle.
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Mu
Mu is bald, shirtless, and can fly.
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Both versions of this game are pretty similar. Moves are performed with a lone attack button in the MSX version, as opposed to two buttons in the Famicom version. There are also some minor color palette differences, but that seems to be it. This version was also released on the Gameboy, and later ended up colorized on some Konami compilations (volume 3 in Japan, volume 4 in Europe, unreleased in America.) This version features a scrolling playing field, since the screen is too small to fit the whole arena. Some of the jumping and bouncing physics are a bit different, but it plays pretty well. Ports of the MSX version are found in the Konami MSX Antiques packages for the Saturn and Playstation.
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Famicom)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Famicom)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Gameboy Color)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu (Gameboy Color)
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Screenshot Comparisons
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Famicom
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MSX
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Gameboy Color
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2: The Emperor Yie-Gah - MSX / Commodore 64 / Amstrad CPC / BBC Micro / Thomson TO7-70 / ZX Spectrum / Saturn / Playstation (1985)
MSX Cover
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2 (MSX)
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2 (MSX)
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This is a direct sequel to the FC/MSX version rather than the arcade game. At the beginning of each stage, you need to walk from right to left, making it past three screens of little flying midgets. Once you get past them, you fight the boss. The three screens are easy though and generally only take a few seconds, although they get far more difficult as they progress, with the tiny little guys bobbing up and down. If you are killed by a boss you restart that level at the boss, so you do not have to replay the first three screens. The difficulty is somehow much higher in this game than in any of the other games for this series. Making it only slightly easier, a bowl of food occasionally falls from the ceiling - if you manage to grab it, your playable character will be invulnerable for a few seconds.
This game's best difference, however, is TWO PLAYER MODE! Player one can only play Lee Young, and player two has a choice of three of this game's boss characters. Naturally, player two is going to have the advantage.
The characters in this game are, again starting with your playable character and progressing through your opponents in the order they are always fought:
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Lee Young
Revealed to be named Lee Young, your playable character from the FC/MSX game, Lee, is back for this installment. He is wearing a shirt and has some really, really bad hair.
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Yen-Pei
Yen-Pei attacks with his braided hair.
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Lan-Fang
Lan-Fang attacks with fans and wears some fancy clothes.
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Po-Chin
Po-Chin turns around and blasts you with farts, which temporarily halts you in your path. Essentially an inspiration for Earthquake from Samurai Shodown. Has a smiley face on the back of his outfit.
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Wen-Hu
Wen-Hu is bald and controls a flying mask (?!).
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Wei-Chin
Wei-Chin is shirtless and attacks with a boomerang.
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Mei-Ling
Mei-Ling wears a skirt and heels. Which is strange given the setting.
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Han-Chen
Han-Chen attacks with bombs. And in a series with some strange character designs, he has the strangest. I mean, look at that guy.
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Li-Jen
Li-Jen is the final boss. He can not only conjure up lighting bolts, but also transports back and forth across the screen. He is also practically designed to be impossible.
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There are a few ports of this game. The MSX version seems like the "original" version and is what I would recommend. The Commodore 64 version looks worse but plays similar. The Amstrad CPC version is competent, but the ZX spectrum version is horrible. The port for Thomson TO7-70 lacks Po-Chin, and is completely devoid of music. The bowls of food that grant invulnerability are at the beginning of each boss fight every time, which might seem like a good idea, but it takes away too much of the challenge. Gameplay wise, this is as poor as the ZX Spectrum version, with graphics to match. Strangely, characters EXPLODE, Hokuto no Ken style, when they are killed. Like its predecessor, a port of the MSX version is found in the Konami MSX Antiques packages for the Saturn and Playstation.
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Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2 (MSX)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2 (MSX)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2 (MSX)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2 (MSX)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu 2 (MSX)
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Screenshot Comparisons
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While the Yie Ar Kung-Fu games might not be as nearly as "deep", as modern fighting game fans would say, but their simple game play stands up, at least once you get the hang of it. The basic fighting system is enjoyable enough that it does not need to be complex. Honestly, there is nothing cooler in video games than spamming a move in Yie Ar Kung-Fu (down & kick, down & kick, down & kick) and slowly whittling down your opponents energy. And they are as addictive as any early arcade game should be. These are also very charming games, but they are by no means reliant on "camp appeal".
Lee makes a cameo appearance in Sexy Parodius. Check out this site's Parodius entry while you are here. The music in the stage is a remix of the same song that appears in Yie Ar Kung-Fu. He appears in front of a house grunting and attacking at the air like a madman. You can hit him and knock him over, if you wish.
Thanks to forum members Brianc and Splatter for the heads-up on the Gameboy versions and MSX compilations, and MP83 and ReyVGM for some of the obscure computer port pictures.
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Sexy Parodius
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