Shao-Lins Road

Copyright : Konami | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

As our Hero, Lee, you have finally mastered the secret martial art, "Chin?s Shao-Lin." You find yourself trapped in the temple by hoards of Triads.

Using your kicking skills and magic powers you must fight off the Triads and get out of the temple and head for the road to freedom. At each step of your way on each stage you will discover one that is particularly skillful! Look out for flying kicks, breathing flame, and punches that come clear out of nowhere!

Graphics

As an arcade conversion, Shao-Lin?s Road doesn?t look too bad and captures the look and spirit of the coin-op quite well. The backgrounds, which change every second level or so, aren?t too bad at all and the animation is respectable.

The only real gripe I have with the graphics is the fact that when your assailants turn at 45 degrees when preparing to jump up or down a level and look directly at the screen, they appear to be cyclopses! It may be a small thing but believe me it can be very off putting!

Sound

The in-game music, with it?s oriental theme is as predictable as it is effective. There?s no denying that it is infectious while playing but doesn?t live on in the memory. A good accompaniment but nothing more.

The lack of any real sound effects is a disappointment however and is an area which most definitely could have been improved.

Gameplay

A bizarre hybrid of platformer and beat-em-up, Shao-Lin?s Road sits uncomfortably between both genres and is better compared to later scrolling beat-em-ups like Dragon Ninja.

As the official sequel to Yie Ar Kung-Fu, this games makes even less sense than the game that was published as Yie Ar Kung-Fu II in terms of storyline and appearance.

Undeniably addictive, the game suffers from being a little too repetitive and an ultimately unrewarding experience.

The deck is very much stacked against you as your opponents appear to be fitter and stronger than you but at the same time are individually no match as most assailants only take one or two kicks to be discarded. More often than not you will lose out after being jumped upon from above or below, something that does your opponent no harm but takes one point of energy from you. This can become very frustrating.

The game does get progressively more harder with more and tougher enemies being introduced but at the end of the day there is no denying that the challenge doesn?t ever pick up pace and what should be a frantic hit and hide platformer ends up an unexciting plod.

For a game that supposedly is a continuation of a top quality beat-em-up, the lack of any real fighting moves is a disappointment with the player only being allowed to kick everyone or hit them with one of the bizarre power-ups.

Certainly a better follow-up than Yie Ar Kung Fu II, and a fairly faithful conversion of an obscure arcade coin-op but this is not enough in itself to make Shao-Lin?s Road a contender