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Honestly, it feels like mobile games are the new movie tie-ins. Every now and again a big license will get a mobile title, and that’s certainly the case with Cobra Kai Card Fighter, the new mobile game based off of the Cobra Kai tv series, itself based off of Karate Kid, one of those movies you quote to show that you’re cool cus you watched movies from decades before you were born.
It’s a card game, but draped over it is the characters and imagery of Cobra Kai, wanting you to really remember that you can find more of these characters in the Cobra Kai web series.,
The Look
Obviously, as a licensed title, the game’s got to have some resemblance to the Netflix series. The most obvious for this is William Zabka, who plays Johnny Lawrence in the series and the movie it’s based off of. Unlike the other characters he only really appears as a 2D sprite, and it looks, well, off.
I mean, again, I get it. You gotta get him looking like William Zabka. He’s a good looking man, too. But the art style just looks like those early art students who want to tell everyone they have a “realistic” style so they paint over a photo. Some kind of style, any kind would have been great.
The rest of the cast have 3D models, and they’re not too great either. A lot of them just look like they had made a stock karate game before this, then just tweaked the assets kind of to make it Cobra Kai based.
The camera angles for this are all fixed, too, so it really bugs me that Miguel’s neck seems to snap, especially when he’s the only unit you have for a good chunk of the start of the game.
Many of the characters also just have these weird facial expressions to them, and it leaves me feeling conflicted. On one hand it’s way better than generic neutral face of discontent, but on the other it also just feels, well, off.
It’s not at all helped by the fact that the faces have very limited animation, so even if Miguel just had a single bad frame they hold that frame for a while.
One thing that really bugs me is the card art though. As the name implies, this game’s actually a card game masquerading as a fighter. With all that in mind I kinda wish the card art had a little more dramatic flare put into it, since right now a lot of it just looks like an IKEA catalogue showing you various Karate moves.
The whole art direction has me conflicted because on one hand I’ve lived through enough licensed tie-ins to know that it absolutely can get worse. On the other, well, it’s still not great, you know?
The Actual Gameplay
I feel like the core of gameplay with Cobra Kai Card Fighter is an interesting idea, but one that just kind of gets washed down by its own premise. The matches are a card game, with a rock-paper-scissors element to them since kicks beat punches, throws beat kicks and so on. As a fighting game player I’m all in for that. The problem here is largely that well, it’s kind of boring.
Each student has their preferences, with built in “wildcards” that enhance their unique playstyles. These usually come in the form of buffs, enhancing damage on the next turn and stuff. On the beginner level, winning the rock-paper-scissors feels entirely luck based. Unless you’ve unlocked all the cards (something not easy to do, mind you) you’re basically just chaining your cards together for big number and losing them every so often.
There’s also the problem that the game’s animations don’t really sync up with the type of game it is. Every time you and your opponent show your cards you get this kind of draggy fight animation, which is honestly well choreographed. It’s just that you’re playing a card game, you don’t *need* this kind of cinematic every turn. At any point I should be able to tell who won the showdown, and the animations are really unclear about that.
To its credit, I like the combo system. Chaining the same types of move will give you a damage bonus, which is great since it risks predictability but rewards you with a big hit. Each character also has a specialty combo, which you’re rewarded for executing. Knowing each character’s specialty combos is a potentially good way to encourage high-level play, but I hadn’t played enough people where that was a factor.
Cards also have an energy cost, which you can regain via certain wildcards or by discarding cards from your hand. You also draw to cap every turn, so don’t worry about potentially running out of cards if you decide to throw in three cards every turn.
I think this is where the game has me most conflicted, because I think there’s some genuinely engaging gameplay to be had here, it’s just that it’s presented in such a way that it makes it really hard to engage with it.
That’s not getting into the fact that you have different attacks, all with their own unique energy costs and rarities, and you can get more of these via training your characters in a dojo. These cost time, but you’re rewarded with what’s basically a card-pull as you get different cards for your fighters.
Naturally, this is where the monetization comes in. You’ll need to spend an hour getting your cards, but you can speed it up with Tokens, the game’s premium currency. Outside of buying them and completing the game’s missions, I haven’t found a way to reliably earn tokens.
The Gameplay Loop
I think my biggest gripe with this game is the gameplay loop. The game actually has a story, albeit one locked behind its missions. These are normal things like winning X number of fights with a specific fighter, upgrading your fight rooms, etc. It’s just such a convoluted way to advance the story, since so many mobile games do a good job of separating this kind of thing by having story progression be one thing and busywork be another.
Instead completing all the missions gets you a cutscene, which can take you in a whole other direction as you shift perspective between the Cobra Kai and Miyagi Do Dojos, and you can’t use fighters from a rival school while you’re playing one school’s story, at least at the start of the game.
Introducing busywork so soon and making it mandatory sounds like a good way to acquaint players with the gameplay loop but all it does is feel like a chore. And with so many mobile games already out there who’ve found a way to make it work better, it unfortunately does color Cobra Kai’s impression on me as just a game that couldn’t do enough to hook you in.
There is a fun minigame though where you beat up a dummy, doing well in that can get you extra training rewards. It’s just kind of there, and it’s not anything to particularly shout about, either.
Final Round For Cobra Kai Card Fighter
All in all, Cobra Kai Card Fighter is a game that could potentially be an interesting tactical fighter, if it wasn’t constantly tripping over itself. In constantly trying to brand itself as “Cobra Kai” it feels unfocused, which is a shame because the actual card-based combat could have made for a really stand-out unique game.
The biggest problem with it is that it feels like mobile games solved a lot of these problems years ago. I mean, most mobile games are busywork, sure, but at least a lot of them have found some kind of way to trick you into thinking you want to do it outside of a literal wall full of chores telling you what to do.
There’s also the problem with the meat of this game’s content being online-only, which could spell trouble if the game doesn’t get a healthy playerbase. Hopefully the game gets updated in future with something interesting, because right now it feels way more Wax Off than Wax On.
| Pros | Cons |
| Card system has potential | The game doesn’t look great |
| Gameplay feels dated | |
| Paintover William Zapka’s eyes will haunt me in my sleep |
Final Score:
5/10
Review build of game provided by publisher. Game reviewed on iPad Pro (2019 model)
