Going back to the early days of Double Dragon, Final Fight, and many more, the beat-em-up genre was an absolute staple of the 80s and 90s arcades. While the genre has had its ups and downs in the console eras, somewhat disappearing for a while before coming back more fiercely this generation, it has been great to see it make a strong return to the scene. One odd thing that had never occurred to me until I saw this title announced though was that though it would seem to be the perfect property for a beat-em-up, until this point The Karate Kid had never gotten an adaptation.

The good news is that if you’re a fan of the movie, or even better the more recent show, you should get some great feels overall here as the action follows most of the main moments of the story pretty effectively. While obviously in order to maintain the typical genre flow some new moments needed to be created to stand in as boss fights, most typically featuring your nemesis from the original movie Johnny Lawrence, I’ll give the developers credit for at least trying to vary what form and feel these battles take on.

You’ll have the option to challenge the punks from Cobra Kai either solo or with a friend, and in the interests of accommodating different play preferences you’ll have 4 characters to choose from, each with their own feel and special attacks. I think the flow you’re able to get into with just about any of these characters, utilizing a wide array of built-in combos as well as ones you’ll simply work out on your own, is noteworthy as being better than the norm. The fact that these all feel a bit different per character just adds to that fun as well.

All that said, even as polished and enjoyable as the game can be, I wouldn’t say that it manages to quite reach the genre’s best on the system either. While the fighting works, and can be satisfying, it isn’t as varied or challenging as some of the competition. Also, for people somehow unfamiliar or less enamored with the franchise, I could see where the loss of that added oomph would likely take quite a bit of steam out of the experience. Nevertheless, if you’re a genre fan and are looking for another reasonably good fix, this will at least be satisfying.