In the game, three karateka fight against each other on a beach, trying to be the first to score six points. After every two rounds, there is a bonus game which is either deflecting bouncing balls or kicking away bombs. The C64 version of the game only has the ball bouncing bonus game, and not the bomb bonus game. The game can be played by one or two human players, at least one fighter is always controlled by the computer. Unlike its predecessor, International Karate, there is only one backdrop. However, different parts of the backdrop can be recoloured to several different themes by the players using specific keystrokes. The Amiga and Atari versions of the game (and possibly other versions, unconfirmed) had a number of "background antics", a Pac-Man would appear, a spider would descend, and a U-boat's periscope would occasionally be seen in the harbour. In addition, pressing the "T" key would cause the trousers of all three protagonists to fall down, after which they would do a double-take. Additionally, it was possible (on the Amiga version, at least) to type in four-letter curse words, the game would respond first by rebuking the player for their use of such language, and upon the second offence would reset the game.