Karateka leaves you with the impression that the game was an experiment. Almost a prototype of what was to be seen in the first consoles after the '82 video game crash. The characters were amazingly fluid for their time, in some ways superior to the stick-figure sprites seen in 8-bit consoles. Karateka is the earliest example I can think of that uses modern cut-scenes - and uses them effectively. The game probably taxed hardware of its time a little too much: the lags in game play were terrible. It might have played much better on later hardware such as the Macintosh, NES, or a 286 PC. I doubt any original copies exist on magnetic media. Since the game is well over 20 years old, the data on original media has long since decayed. I did find a disk image recently to play on my Mac using an Apple II emulator and was overwhelmed with a wave of nostalgia. If you get a chance, check out a fan film called Karateka II, a very silly although somewhat buggy parody.
