Shanghai Kid is a fighting game released for arcades in 1985 in Japan and North America. In Japan, the game was titled Hohuka Syourin: Hiryu no Ken ("North Faction Shaolin: Fist of the Flying Dragon"). It is the first game of the Hiryu no Ken / Flying Dragon franchise.
The player makes his way through waves of enemies in various arenas in front of an audience. The game is the first to introduce a combo system.
Instead of normal fighting game mechanics, Shanghai Kid relies on a targeting system for attacks. Randomly throughout the fight, a target appears on the enemy's head, allowing the player to do a quick attack. Sometimes, however, the target appears on the player's head, signaling the timing is right for a block. The game discouraged button mashing by taking away health from a player who presses a button when a target is not on screen. When the word "RUSH" appears on screen, the player could string together a long series of attacks, a precursor to later combo systems in games. The targetting star would stay on the enemy through the whole rush, though move to different body parts.
Legacy
The gameplay of Shanghai Kid made its way into the entire Hiryu no Ken / Flying Dragon series, and the same basic targetting star system is used for fights all the way through to games released many years later on the Super Famicom.
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