I remember the day well. It was a quiet Saturday morning during June 2021 when a handful of games were free to play on Xbox over the course of that weekend. Nothing unusual there, but this weekend happened to include the Netflix show tie-in Cobra Kai – published by prolific licensed software purveyors GameMill. I’ve always seen licensed games as a guilty pleasure, as even the bad ones are often unintentionally amusing in some way, either through shoddiness or sheer laziness.
I’d recently beaten Zombieland: Double Tap – Road Trip during a Free Play weekend, taking no more than three hours and saving myself however much it eventually dropped to. A fiver, probably. Expecting something similarly short and casual, the goal was to rinse Cobra Kai for achievements and trying to blitz through it as quickly as possible. A good game this wasn’t. Far from it – it took the form of a scrolling brawler where after shuffling forward a few yards invisible barriers appeared, halting progress until defeating countless enemies. Once the barriers vanished you shuffled forward until more appeared, rinse and repeat until a boss arrived. The amount of padding was ridiculous – this was a three-hour game stretched across 12 hours. Yes – the original Cobra Kai tie-in was a monotonous scrolling brawler that took over 12 hours to beat. I was able to play through it during that Free Play weekend – and for no cost other than my sanity.
With this in mind, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear of a sequel. I remember reading that it was an improvement on the original and seeing a few 6/10 review scores bandied about, but had largely forgotten about it. That was until coming across a dirt-cheap copy on eBay. It routinely sells for £15-£20 despite being a few years old, but the price I paid was closer to £5. With some downtime until Atomfall dropped on Game Pass, I found myself finally unsealing the shrink-wrap, hoping for a less arduous experience. Research online told me this one takes closer to five hours to beat, which seemed far more reasonable for the casual button basher I was expecting.
Believe it or not, Cobra Kai 2 – Dojos Rising is largely entertaining, and not for the wrong reasons. If it wasn’t for Cruis’n’ Blast and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, it may even be the best thing GameMill has ever put their name to. The concept is rather ambitious, if only for a licensed game. After picking a side (Cobra Kai, Wolf Fang, or Miyagi-Do) it’s then a case of heading to various locations on the map, freely, to recruit staff and fighters. Staff bestow perks and will run the daily operations of the dojo, with profit used to purchase new items. Recruiting fighters meanwhile sees a new face added to the pool of playable characters, each of which have their own moves and upgradable stats. You’re encouraged to swap out fighters regularly to boost their morale and can even kick them out of your dojo entirely. Once you’ve amassed a full team and upgraded them to a sufficient standard, you can then enter the All Valley Tournament. Here, you’re pitted against one-on-one fights with a karate-style scoring system. Being a story driven affair, there are some loose ends to tie up after the tournament too.
What’s neat about the recruiting process is that it doesn’t merely involve punching potentially teammates into submission. Every fighter has different criteria, with a couple only joining by selecting the right dialogue options. Fail, and you’re out of luck. There are a few on-foot races to partake in, a game of human bowling(!), a quest to throw enemies into the path of a rollercoaster, and dozens of fights that alter the rules of play. Bosses also feature, with a few having quite outlandish and comical attacks, along with a battle on a bumper cart ride.
Indeed, what really makes this so entertaining is how nonsensical it is, putting renown characters into ridiculous situations. You’d think Netflix would’ve popped into the developer’s studio to ensure the license is being used authentically, but it seems they had free reign. Special attacks include fire and ice blasts, enemies can be catapulted the length of the screen, kicks and punches are greatly exaggerated, walls crumble and floors give way, weapons include squeaky hammers and pool noodles…the list goes on. Fights are often messy and chaotic; a clash of fireballs, enemies frozen in ice, spinning kicks and flaming uppercuts, and enemies being thrown into objects such as gas canisters and bookcases. While some of the character likenesses are questionable, it isn’t a bad looking game at all, with most locations showcasing a competent level of detail and elemental attacks bolstered by fancy effects.
Cobra Kai 2 is far from cerebal, and it only ever becomes challenging during its final moments. One thing it excels at though is being entertaining. The developers managed to defy the odds of a small budget and the constraints of the license to make something fun. It recalls SEGA’s experimental phase with the genre – which resulted in such oddities as Dynamite Cop and Zombie Revenge. Or if you wanted to stay closer to the subject of karate, it’s a modern day take on Midway’s WWF Wrestlemania The Arcade Game – which saw dollar signs and cooked hams explode from wrestlers when hit. Far removed from reality, but a better experience for it.