The success of the first Karate Kid film (1984) obviously invited a video game adaptation for the second instalment. Besides the orientalism of the film series, its interest was perhaps in the dialectic developed with Hong Kong action films. Such cultural baggage is absent for the video game, but is supplanted by the action-platformer tradition of the 1980s. In this respect, The Karate Kid is an ultimately lacklustre attempt. The player takes on the role of Daniel in a succession of four levels that are roughly reminiscent of the film's plot - it's worth noting that the first stage is the tournament featured in the first entry of the franchise. The last three levels are side-scrollers, interspersed with bonus stages, which test the player's reflexes. These are generally uninteresting, but serve as a distraction from the rest of the game. Indeed, the levels are generally unenjoyable, if only because of the ad nauseam rehashing of enemies. This feeling is not helped by the protagonist's strange collisions against the various platforms: jumping with the D-Pad's up button is particularly frustrating, especially as the wind comes into play in the third level.

The combat system is also vacuous. While it is possible to punch or kick, the former should almost always be avoided, as the range is too short to be really effective against the various opponents. On the contrary, kicking puts the player in a much more comfortable situation, thus nullifying a whole part of the gameplay. The only times when fists should be favoured are in situations where the player and the enemies are not on the same plane: sometimes a punch will hit the target more easily. Nevertheless, these situations remain in all cases unreadable. The Karate Kid therefore hardly convinces. Already outdated, it suffered from an unpleasant monotony and never managed to make a proposal worthy of interest. Of course, there are some ideas, but they are always superficial and implemented in a way that is too muddled to actually work.