Shanghai Kid (Arcade) Playthrough
163A playthrough of Data East's 1985 arcade fighting game, Shanghai Kid.
Played through on the medium difficulty level.
Following less than a year behind Data East's Karate Champ and Konami's Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Shanghai Kid was among the first 1v1 fighting games to show up in North American arcades when it was released at the end of 1985. It was the first game developed by Nihon Game Corporation, which marketed its work under the name Taiyo System until 1987, when the company shifted focus to console game development and officially rebranded itself as Culture Brain.
Shanghai Kid, released in Japan as 北派少林 飛龍の拳 (Hokuha Shourin Hiryuu no Ken, lit. "Northern Shaolin: Fist of the Flying Dragon"), marks the beginning of the Hiryuu no Ken (Flying Warriors) franchise. It lacks the platformer/RPG trappings of the later games in the series, but the core fighting game mechanics that defined the NES and SNES-era titles were established here. The "Mind's Eye" system uses targeting icons to indicate when and how you should strike and block, moves can be chained together to trigger a "rush" state that allows for custom combos, certain attacks can be countered with throws, and you can spend a full KO meter to launch a super move.
The gameplay strikes a good balance between complexity and accessibility, it looks and sounds great for its age (aside from that beeping KO gauge, at least!), and it displays a ton of innovation in its design. Though it has been largely forgotten over the years, Shanghai Kid was an important work, and its influence helped to shape the evolution of fighting games in the decade following its release.
If you're a fan of Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll, Flying Warriors, 2-in-1 Fighting Simulator, or Ultimate Fighter ( • Ultimate Fighter (SNES) Playthrough ), I recommend checking this one out!
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