Mr. Karate

From Atrocious Gameplay Wiki

Mr. Karate is a character in SNK's Art of Fighting and King of Fighters franchises, usually as Takuma Sakazaki, the master and father of the main characters of AOF. He also appears in SVC Chaos, both regular and in a new boss variant called Serious Mr. Karate.

This page covers his original appearance in Art of Fighting 1 and his return in SVC Chaos.

Why He Sucks

Art of Fighting

  1. Mr. Karate is a clone of Ryo and Robert, but his stats are what they'd be like with stats fully maxed out. To put it simply, the mini-games you play throughout the game allows you to upgrade your stats & get your Super, which you can't have them all in one go, giving him an enormous advantage over you.
  2. As usual with his peers, he deals humongous damage, even by using normals & in chip damage. For example, if his Haoh Shoko Ken super being an instant kill somehow doesn't scare you, that he can beat you with a handful of regular moves will.
  3. Vicious counter-happy AI.
  4. Great priority on his moves.
  5. Stuns you very easily, as in a meager 3-hit combo can be enough to stun you like a bee hive.
  6. He charges his Spirit meter a lot faster & his specials deplete a whole lot less of it, meaning he can use his devastating specials & super without much trouble.
  7. Recovers very quickly when stunned, giving you little time to launch a combo.

SVC Chaos (as Serious Mr. Karate)

  1. Insane damage.
  2. Crazy priority.
  3. Some of his special moves (like his fireballs and his supers) are basically super moves.
  4. He abuses cancels. Just when you think you have an opportunity to strike, he'll suddenly attack and launch nasty combos on you.
  5. When his life is in the red/half-depleted, he'll use his only Super that he can use only once, but is incredibly damaging and unblockable.
  6. His playable version was so nerfed that he's actually weaker than regular Mr. Karate. Predictably, he is awful to play as and not worth bothering.

Redeeming Qualities

  1. Takuma Sakazaki himself is a mostly likeable character and really fun to play as in the KOF games.
  2. Mr. Karate later re-appeared as DLC in KOF XIII & as Ryo Sakazaki in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, both of which are very fun to play as.
  3. Fortunately, his fight doesn't affect their progress towards Athena in SVC Chaos.