Wax-on lyrical.
In the wake of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, squat, cartoony, sprite-based scrolling beat ’em ups seem to be very fashionable. The forthcoming Toxic Crusaders is going for a similar look, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons was uncharacteristically cutesy, and now The Karate Kid: Street Rumble features a cast that look like they rolled out of a Gashapon vending machine.
That said, the aesthetic effort here is quite accomplished. Set in a pastel-hued mid-’80s Reseda, California, while locations are rather plain initially, they quickly improve as things progress, with one of the best-looking arcade centre stages we’ve seen in a while. The spritework is excellent, too, with cool characters who are both well-formed and animated, and have a nice finish in terms of colour casting. The pixel art is a far cry from the cutscene art, anyway, which kind of sucks.
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