Kung-Fu Master tips and tricks

When you start the game, Thomas will be at the right side of the screen. It will then be your job to navigate him through the five floors to Mr. X. On each floor. Don't ever forget that you have a certain amount of time to make it to Mr. X and to beat him. Your time begins at 2000 and will stop as soon as you begin walking up the stairs to the next level.
If Thomas is grabbed by the Grippers (regular sized guys) or Tom Toms (the midgets), just rapidly shake the joystick left and right,or on keyboard move left, right up and down as much and fast as you can. This will throw them off of Thomas, the quicker the better. The longer they hold you the more energy you will lose.


Knife Throwers can be really annoying in this game. In the lower levels, they throw at a medium or high height. Later on, they also will throw low so besides ducking you will also have to get into the habit of jumping over their knives. Remember, it always takes two hits to take out a Knife Thrower. When you get up to the higher levels don't be surprised if you have a knife thrower on your left and another on your right, they will test your karate skills here. The best way to counter this is to move toward the left or right if you could to get one of the Knife Throwers off the screen and deal with the other one. If you can't, just go heads up and use your skills to knock them out! One other scenario you will face is when Thomas (you) are being held and then a knife thrower emerges. Now this is a tough situation ain't it. Best to just get loose as fast as you could because you can not duck or jump from the knives while behind held. You will learn that if you are being held and being hit by knives at the same time your energy will go down really quickly.
You might want to make it to the boss of each round as quickly as possible, remember you are on a time limit and fighting against time while fighting the boss can not be a good thing. You will know the boss is near when everyone else sort of disappears from the screen, they will not go where the boss is, seems like they have to stay a certain footage away from him.

As you are moving along the floor, you will be assaulted by different people and things. Enemies encountered will depend on which floor you are currently on. As you finish each Devil's Temple, the floors will get harder as the enemies become more numerous and quicker. The floors are broken up as follows.

1ST FLOOR : This floor just has Grippers (the regular sized guys) and Knife Throwers. They do become more numerous the more Temples you successfully complete.

2ND FLOOR : This floor has a few different enemies to deal with.
1) You will be assaulted by vases and confetti balls. If you do not destroy the vases before they hit the floor, they will release dragons or snakes. You can attempt to kick or punch the dragons, but it is risky since they blow fire from their mouths. This in addition to other enemies around you. As for the snakes, your only defense is to jump over them.
2) The confetti balls explode after a period of time sending shrapnel in all directions. These can be destroyed before they do any harm.
3) On the final part of the floor, you will deal with Grippers, Tom Toms, and Knife Throwers. (This is where the Tom Toms make their first appearance).

3RD FLOOR : This floor is like the first floor except now you will also have Tom Toms to deal with. One not on Tom Toms, careful as they will surprise you by doing a flip and landing on your head, taking some energy away, you got to jump to counter attack that flip attack. Sometimes as your walking you can jump right over them, of course there can not be a lot of them.

4TH FLOOR : This floor only has a couple of enemies to deal with.
1) At the beginning of the floor, Poisonous Moths will be released from the walls. They will come at Thomas randomly high, medium, or low. That means you will have to do some fancy footwork to either avoid them or take them out.
2) After the Poisonous Moths, the rest of the floor is the usual Grippers, Tom Toms, and Knife Throwers.

5TH FLOOR : Just like the 3rd floor except the Knife Throwers come out more frequently now.

If you are playing for points you might want to know that punches always earn you more points than kicks. Kicks do seem a little more safer though for some reason if you are playing more to see how far in the game you can get. Here is a breakdown of the points.

Punch on Grippers : 200 points
Punch on Tom Toms : 300 points
Punch on Knife Throwers : 800 points (Require 2 hits)

Kick on Grippers : 100 points
Kick on Tom Toms : 200 points
Kick on Knife Throwers : 500 points (Require 2 hits)

Jump Kick on Grippers : 200 points
Jump Kick on Tom Toms : 300 points
Jump Kick on Knife Throwers : 800 points (Require 2 hits)

If you kick or punch into a group, you have a chance of knocking more then one fighter off the floor. The progressions for this are...

Progression for Jump Kick or Punch :
1 person : 200 points
2 persons : 400 points
3 persons : 600 points
4 persons : 800 points

For everyone beyond the 4th person, it stays at 800 points.

Progression for a Kick or Low Sweep :
1 person : 100 points
2 persons : 200 points
3 persons : 300 points
4 persons : 400 points

For everyone beyond the 4th person, it stays at 400 points.

On the 2nd and 4th floors, you will encounter some different enemies.
Dragons : 2000 points
Confetti Balls : 1000 points
Vases (Kicked) : 200 points
Vases (Punched) : 100 points
Poisonous Moths (Kicked) : 500 points
Poisonous Moths (Punched) : 600 points

You also get points for the bosses :
1st Floor (Stick Fighter) : 2000 points
2nd Floor (Boomerang Fighter) : 3000 points
3rd Floor (Giant) : 4000 points
4th Floor (Black Magician) : 5000 points
5th Floor (Mr. X) : 10000 points

At the end of each floor, you will receive bonus points by adding your time remaining + your remaining energy. To complete a floor, you must go up the stairs to the next floor.

Defeating The Bosses : There are five bosses to deal with in this game. For most of the bosses, if you can back them up against the stairs and start pounding on them, you will defeat them very quickly. Of course, some bosses won't work with you in that area so you have to try other methods.

Floor 1) STICK FIGHTER : His claim to fame is that he has a big stick and he doesn't speak at all. This is one of the easier bosses to take down. You can tell when he is ready to strike because he cocks his arm back to swing. Just move or jump back to avoid being hit. You can crowd him against the stairs. Once you have done that, use a series of low sweeps to finish him off.
You can also take him out be doing jump kicks on him but that is a little more tricky since he can get a hit on you if you are not ready. Best thing to do is get really close to him, as much as you could, in his face basically, he will swing his stick but can't hit you because you are so close. Start sweep kicking him, as soon as he backs up he will get sweep kicked many times. Back up, do the same thing over.

Floor 2) BOOMERANG FIGHTER : This guy likes to hit you coming and going. He throws two boomerangs at Thomas. If Thomas avoids them on the trip out, he may get hit on the return trip. Your first priority is avoiding the boomerangs (of course). Most of the time, he throws the boomerangs mid or high so you can easily duck. Sometimes he will throw some low shots so you have to jump. Once he releases his boomerangs, get up to him and let loose with kicks and punches. Prepare for the boomerangs return trip and once he catches them, hit him a couple of more times. You should only have to do this cycle a couple of times before the Boomerang Fighter is no more. Doing a couple jump kicks on this guy and he is out real quick, really simple guy, of course just don't let the boomerangs hit you.

Level 3) GIANT : He stands about twice as tall as Thomas. Plus, he packs a mean wallop both in his punch and kick. Although he is built like a tank, he is not very quick. Thomas can get in about three shots to his one. The problem is, when the Giant hits Thomas, a lot of energy loss occurs.
Don't even try to go toe-to-toe with this guy or you will lose almost every time. The best attacks are the jump kick and low sweep. You just have to watch out for his kick on the low sweep.
This one may take a while since you need to be careful around the giant. I will usually go toward him with a jump kick and just start low sweeping kick him. Sometimes as I go in for that jump kick I will get hit once but it's O.K. If I have like no energy, i will just try to go in with the low sweep kick, get some energy off of him, back up, do the low sweep kick again, back up and so on.

Level 4) BLACK MAGICIAN : Of course, no Devil's Temple would be complete without the resident Black Magician to annoy you. The Black Magician is one of the stranger bosses you have to deal with. His claim to fame is a couple of things. First, he creates duplicates of himself so you don't know which one is the real Black Magician. Second, he sometimes sends creatures after you such as bats to make your life miserable. The Black Magician can be one of the easier bosses to deal with, as some have said. Or he can be the toughest opponent to deal with, as other have said. You need to back him up to the stairs as quickly as possible to limit his movement. If the Black Magician has a lot of room, he can create duplicates which will hurt Thomas. Once you've backed him against the stairs, the only thing that will work on the Black Magician are low punches. When you have him backed against the stairs and are pounding on him, he can't create duplicates or other critters to harass Thomas.

Level 5) MR. X : Well, you've finally made it to Mr. X, the boss of all the bosses. This will be a test of all of your Kung-Fu skills. Mr. X is no pushover. In addition, Mr. X regenerates his energy so you have to be quick about taking him down or he will fully regenerate. You will notice that Mr. X is a kung-fu master himself and has his own series of Kung-Fu moves that could very well do severe damage to Thomas. You will need to use different combos to get through Mr. X's defenses. If he seems to block a particular attack, quickly switch to another. For example, if he blocks a low sweep, change it to a jump kick and you may get a shot in. Also, use your punches after getting his defenses away with kicks. This will be a long battle but if you continue using different attacks, you can take him down. Let me tell you the easiest way to beat this guy, just walk up to him and do one low sweep kick and immediately back up, you may hit him, you may not (as sometimes he will block it). Go for the low sweep kick again and back up. You'll make a hit at least 50% of the time. Just remember to only kick once and back up. If you try to keep kicking and stuff he will show you the skills he has. Once Mr. X is beaten, you walk forward to kiss Silvia. Jump at the last minute and you'll walk a few extra steps and kiss thin air.

One interesting fact about this game is that Kung Fu-Master was the first scrolling beat -them up sideways video game and is a true classic that is seen by many as the gateway for many other karate type games such as Double Dragon, Final Fight, Captain Commando and Streets of Rage.