Games of the 8-, 16- & 32-bit era

Karateka

Title	Karateka
First release	1984
Developer	Jordan Mechner
Publisher	Broderbund
Platforms	Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 7800, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, NES / Famicom, PC (Windows), ZX Spectrum
Genre	action game
Players	1 player
Co-op	No
Releases	Apple II: 1984-01-01 Atari 7800: 1984-07-01 Commodore 64: 1984-07-15 Atari 8-bit: 1985-01-01 NES / Famicom: 1985-12-05 Atari ST: 1988-11-01 (NTSC)
Wikidata ID	Q2353348

Akuma's castle fortress serves as the setting for a side-view martial arts quest. Players utilize three distinct types of punches and kicks to defeat a succession of increasingly difficult opponents. The gameplay focuses on timing these strikes to navigate the environment and ultimately rescue Princess Mariko.

Description: REG-Vault, CC BY-SA 4.0

View on Wikidata Read on Wikipedia

Facts from Wikidata (CC0), gaps filled from REG-Vault and TheGamesDB. Only retro platforms tracked by this site are listed; the year is the earliest release date recorded on Wikidata.

Sources

Wikidata (Q2353348) · last updated 2026-09-27 · CC0

REG-Vault (apple2/karateka) · last updated 2026-10-12 · descriptions CC BY-SA 4.0

REG-Vault (c64/karateka) · last updated 2026-09-30 · descriptions CC BY-SA 4.0

REG-Vault (nes/karateka) · last updated 2026-10-25 · descriptions CC BY-SA 4.0

TheGamesDB (4903) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only

TheGamesDB (7134) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only

TheGamesDB (35794) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only

TheGamesDB (50414) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only

TheGamesDB (26265) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only

TheGamesDB (98539) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only

Source: REG-Vault (upstream not stated) · © Broderbund · internal use only

1 / 18 Box art Box art (front) 1

Image credits

Box art, Screenshots, Logos, Artwork (11): Source: REG-Vault (upstream not stated) · © Broderbund · internal use only. REG-Vault page

Screenshots (2): Source: libretro-thumbnails (upstream libretro-thumbnails (art by developers/publishers; see repo README)) · © Broderbund · internal use only.

Sprites

No sprite sheets yet. Find sprites on The Spriters Resource ↗ /

Videos

Atari ST Longplay - Karateka

World-of-Longplays · Atari ST version · longplay · 44:09auto-matched
Watch on YouTube ↗ · auto:channel-harvest, checked 2026-10-25 18:42 UTC

NES Game: Karateka (1984 Soft Pro)

Old Classic Retro Gaming · NES / Famicom version · longplay · 29:48auto-matched
Watch on YouTube ↗ · auto:channel-harvest, checked 2026-10-25 18:43 UTC

"Auto-matched" videos were found automatically (title + platform match via the YouTube Data API) and may occasionally be wrong. Videos are hosted by YouTube (embedded via youtube-nocookie.com; nothing loads from YouTube until you press play) and belong to their channels.