Fist II: The Legend Continues Longplay (C64) [QHD]
127Game Info
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Developer: Beam Software
Publisher: Melbourne House
Year of Release: 1986
Game Review & Impressions
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The Way of the Exploding Fist is considered a classic by many who owned a C64 back in the day, myself included. This early one-on-one combat game by Beam Software featured fantastic graphics, superb music, a surprisingly refined combat system, not to mention those iconic, if rather scratchy digitised audio samples.
Unsurprisngly, Beam attempted to build on the success of the original with Fist II: The Legend Continues. It lifts the core combat mechanics and controls from the original, but shoe-horns them into a terribly lacklustre and dull arcade adventure. The objective is to scour the sizeable game map for 8 scrolls (trigrams), then take these to a corresponding shrine to meditate upon the teachings held within, increasing your combat effectiveness in the process. Only once all trigrams have been found can you ascend the volcanic domain of the evil warlord and face him in single combat.
On a journey through the myriad of maze-like screens, you'll engage in fisticuffs with minions of the warlord. These fights are pretty much identical to the original Exploding Fist, except combatants now have health bars and take multiple hits before being knocked out. Punches and kicks can be excuted by moving the joystick in certain directions with or without the fire button pressed, while moving away from the opponent will perform a block against incoming strikes. The system works well enough, although enemies can often be taken out pretty quickly by using the reverse kick.
An adventure game based around Fist's combat system might sound exciting, but the sad reality is Fist II isn't particularly fun. You'll spend most of the time wandering around -- and getting lost in -- the expansive map. There's preciously little to tell locations apart, other than perhaps the colour of the cave you're in, and hours can be lost simply climbing ladders, falling down holes, and getting assaulted by packs of wolves as you try and figure out just where the heck you are. Creating a map is really the only solution to all of this, but the inclusion of poisonous gas in certain rooms means you'll need to locate the relevant trigram and meditate at the correct shrine to gain the ability to traverse these locations without taking damage.
Just to rub a bit of extra salt into the wounds, the original retail version of the game shipped with various bugs, at least one of them game-breaking. I believe this involved some kind of glitch with one of the waterfalls, in which your character could get stuck, ruining your chance beating the game. The C64 community has stepped up and released versions of the game which fix these issues, which is what I used to record this longplay, but the fact the game shipped in this state suggests it may have been rushed to market, as it clearly could have used more time in the oven.
The game's aestehtic is extremely cool, and Neil Brennan's musical score for the game is eerily atmospheric (even if one of the tracks was ripped from The Hobbit), but it doesn't really make up for the fact Fist II is a dull hiking simulator with the odd fight thrown in. The fact Beam bothered to include a what was effectively a rehash of the original Way of the Exploding Fist on the B side of the cassette tape makes me wonder whether even they knew the primary adventure mode wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Chapters
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TBC