Kung-Fu Master

1984 · Beat 'em up · Arcade

Overview

Kung-Fu Master (1984) is Irem's side-scrolling martial arts game: fight up five floors of a temple to rescue Sylvia, defeating a boss on each floor.

Deep Dive

Thomas battles across the five floors of a temple to rescue his girlfriend Sylvia, punching and kicking through waves of grabbers and knife-throwers, with a different boss guarding the end of each floor. The setup draws on Bruce Lee's Game of Death. Designed by Takashi Nishiyama, who later created Street Fighter, it is an early form of the side-scrolling beat-'em-up refined by Double Dragon and Final Fight.

Developer Story

Kung-Fu Master was developed by Irem in 1984, designed by Takashi Nishiyama who would later design Street Fighter. In Japan it was a tie-in with the Jackie Chan film Wheels on Meals, released as Spartan X, while its structure echoes Bruce Lee's Game of Death. Players fought through five floors of enemies using punches, kicks, and jumps. The side-scrolling beat-em-up format it established influenced virtually every fighting game of the following decade.

Did You Know?

Kung-Fu Master was designed by Takashi Nishiyama, who later created the original Street Fighter — the fighting game genre's lineage runs directly through him.
In Japan it was released as Spartan X, a tie-in with the Jackie Chan film Wheels on Meals, though its climb up a guarded tower borrows from Bruce Lee's Game of Death.
Five distinct floor bosses each required different tactics, introducing the concept of themed boss encounters to beat-em-ups.
The side-scrolling brawler format created here was refined by Double Dragon and perfected by Streets of Rage and Final Fight.