The Martial Spirit...

Budokan: the Martial Spirit (1989)

Talk about forgotten video games, particularly forgotten video games of the fighting variety, Budokan certainly fits that profile. I first discovered this game in the early nineties, because a friend of mine had it for his PC, and once I started playing it, I continued for the rest of the night, and walked around the next day like an exhausted zombie.

The graphics are by today’s standard, crude to say the least, heck; they were probably crude for the late eighties. But, that’s beside the point; the game play seemed more realistic, because the bulk of the game consisted of training, and mastering of martial arts skills.

The player would train with the sword, the long staff, the nunchacku, and work on their karate skills as well. You could train for hours, go to visit the master of the school, and he’d still tell you weren’t ready to enter the competition.

The competition was another story, once you entered it; you really needed to hold your own. Because, it took very few loses to be sent back to school, and continue your training.

I haven’t played the game for nearly twenty years and I would seriously like to get my hands on a copy of it again, because it was seriously addictive. Although, I am sure, like many other things, it probably hasn’t aged very well. But, nostalgia is what is, and that’s the point.