Game Review: The Way of the Exploding Fist (Commodore 16 and Plus/4, Ricochet)

The Way of the Exploding Fist was first released by Melbourne House back in 1985 for the Commodore 64, with the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 conversion by Richard Costello coming in later.  In an interview he did for Retro Gamer magazine, Richard mentioned he earned a decent amount of money which allowed him to purchase a motorbike, after programming the assembler code on a BBC Micro, outputting the hexadecimal, and getting his Mum to type all the hexadecimal in – a real family effort and one which did appear to be pulled off well.

For the Ricochet re-release, the glaring omission is in the instructions, which just take the moves from the Commodore 64 version and assume that they were the same – they were not.  The game though was remastered with Novaload, with a tell-tale message hidden in the code stating FIST C16 BY RDA 11/4/88.  During the load, the outline of what would be the graphics for the backdrop appears as PETSCII characters which would become the user-defined graphics on load.  Some games did this to squeeze the code into the available memory – and as the original loader was full screen striped borders, you would not have seen this happening.

Dance of the TED People

Upon loading, an attract mode shows with the fighters enacting a battle.  There is only one background, that of the fourth one on the Commodore 64 version with the large buddha statue in the centre, and a temple to the left and hills to the right, making sensible use of the colour palette for the system.  There is also a rendition of the Chinese traditional theme Dance of the Yao People crammed into one channel of the TED chip, which is a reasonable effort and conversion from Neil Brennan’s superlative Commodore 64 version – even if the one channel sound can grate a bit as it plays all the time during play too.

Light and Dark

Starting off a one player game brings forward your computer opponent.  Due to limitations, your fighter is in a lighter shading whilst the computer fighter is in a darker shade.  This allows the same character sets to be used but clearly defines by the colour who is who – and to be fair, although small, they are well defined at least.  As with the original, you need to score two yin-yangs (the black and white symbols) to win the bout.  Half a yin-yang is achieved by a blow which is less harmful, known as the waza-ari, and a full yin-yang is a more decisive blow, the ippon.  You have 30 seconds per bout and the winner is determined by two yin-yangs, or whoever has scored the most at the end of that time.

Somersault Omissions

There are plenty of moves available to you all controlled by the joystick – but some of them are not here in this version due to constraints.  The jumping kick is not here and neither is the somersault, most likely to keep down the frames of animation needed and to keep the fighters on the same horizontal parts of the screen.  All the remaining punches and kicks are here, including, impressively, the roundhouse kick.  All the moves and kicks that do exist are in the same joystick direction as the Commodore 64 version, except the directions for somersaults are now the high and low blocks.  Again, that is a sensible decision and does mean you can effectively block well if you need to.

There are only some white noise sound effects for landing a hit, and the music from the title screen plays all the way through.  The animation though is very good, with the different moves being clear to see from the punches and kicks to the roundhouse kick, although again to save frames, the white noise sound for getting a score is accompanied by the fighter either kneeling with a hit to the stomach or flat hitting the ground – but this is still very well done under the circumstances.

I’m Your Dan

Progressing through to each level of dan to tenth dan requires winning two bouts against the computer opponent.  As there is only one background, you will just note the dan you have reached at the right-hand side of the screen.  One other difference is that at the end of each bout, there is no bonus added for the time remaining, so there is not so much of a rush to try to complete the bout for extra points.  That could have been added in potentially, but does mean you can also be more tactical should you need to.

The difficulty curve does seem to be set easier than the Commodore 64 version.  I managed to get to seventh dan relatively unscathed over time, and landing the mid-range kick was often the key, as well as some well-timed leg sweeps that can be counteracted with the jump – albeit it is not a big jump off the ground.   The punches also worked well and the roundhouse kick when executed really does boost the score nicely.

Two To Tango

Two player mode behaves differently, in that it is not two yin-yangs to win, but you have four round of thirty seconds.  Like the Commodore 64 version, it is basically a score challenge – whoever has the highest score at the end wins.  It gives you plenty of opportunity to have a good scrap, and if just playing alone allows you to work out the timing and placement of when to do various moves.  It is also nice that they kept in the contestants bowing to the camera at the end of the four bouts, even if the scoring judge is missing who would show you who won.

Final Thoughts

The Way of the Exploding Fist on the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 is a well programmed and solid conversion from the Commodore 64 original.  Sensible decisions were made to save memory, with the removal of the somersaults and flying kicks, but what has remained is that the gameplay is intact.  The moves you can pull off work well and although the fighters are a lot smaller, they are well defined, clearly animated, and before long you will be progressing nicely through the dans.  The two-player mode still being here is also icing on the cake, and shows what can happen when a conversion falls into good hands.

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