Boy, how about that Daniel-San, huh? He really karate’d the heck out of that other guy in the 1984 film The Karate Kid. But that was more than 30 years ago, so what the heck is Daniel up to nowadays? Well, you see, now he is a Karate Man. And also a car dealership mogul. At least that’s the plot of the previously YouTube exclusive and now Netflix produced TV series Cobra Kai, which sees Daniel in the present time rekindling the rivalry between him and his arch-nemesis Johnny Lawerence. The series is quite acclaimed, with its third season debuting on Netflix just last month and a fourth season already in the works, and as is the case with pretty much anything that gets popular like Cobra Kai has, there’s soon to be a mobile tie-in game for the series. And honestly? It looks pretty cool. The game is called Cobra Kai: Card Fighter and as that name implies it’s a hybrid of collectible card game and turn-based karate fighting. Here’s a trailer.
As you can probably deduce from the trailer, the game follows the plot of the series where both Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence have opened up their own karate schools which of course are in competition with one another. You’ll get to choose to play as Daniel’s school which teaches the ways of Mr. Miyagi, or Johnny’s Cobra Kai dojo whose motto is “Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy." Yeah, Johnny’s once again kind of the “bad guy" here, but he’s also trying to turn the lives of inner-city kids around, so he’s not all bad. Speaking of which you’ll also be able to mentor characters straight out of the show like Robby, Miguel, Samantha, Eli “Hawk”, Aisha, and Demetri. As you build up your card collection you’ll then take those cards into weekly and monthly online turn-based karate tournaments, earning XP as you go and leveling up your characters and unlocking all sorts of new goodies.
As far as licensed mobile games go, Cobra Kai: Card Fighter actually sounds like a fun mashup of game types that lends itself well to the Cobra Kai IP. You can pre-order the iOS version on the App Store or pre-register for the Android version on the Google Play Store, and keep your eye out for Cobra Kai: Card Fighter when it arrives on March 19th.
