[i][b]TL;DR:[/b] Decent beat-em-up with cool powers. Playstyle doesn't change drastically depending upon which dojo you choose. A whole plethora of bugs and optimisation issues. Story is practically padding between start and end. Not a lot of replay value even with the New Game+ mode and the true ending.[/i]
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To be entirely honest, Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga continues is the first side-scrolling beat-em-up that I've played for any significant amount of time apart from certain titles back on the NES and in arcades. And given that, I could not find it particularly impressive. The game does propose quite a few things that I personally found innovative in comparison to Double Dragon. But the execution of said proposals fell quite flat. It can still be a fun game as long as you don't expect too much from it.
To begin with the story, well, there is none. Depending on the Dojo you choose, someone either invites Miguel or Samantha to the Mini Golf and Arcade and ambushes them there. While retreating from their failed ambush, they drop a map highlighting various spots all across Reseda, nudging your dojo towards figuring out what's going on there. The rest of the game is simply you walking through the streets of Reseda and crashing people's businesses, looking to figure out who's behind this mess, and finding somebody from the rival Dojo or somebody else from the Cobra Kai cast in there instead. And after you manage to beat them, you'll either have to flee or be told about how some Karate Guy at the Shopping Mall told them to do so. The true ending of the game can be unlocked by beating the game a second time using the New Game+ mode, but even there, there's practically zero plot development between the Prologue and the final showdown.
The gameplay is where innovative things begin to come into play. While this is a traditional beat-em-up in every sense of the word with weak thugs and bosses, you can freely switch between characters of you Dojo as long as you're clear of the cooldown. All characters have their own unique set of special moves in addition to special moves shared among all the characters of a Dojo known as Dojo Skills. And every character has a unique ultimate move which always deals a whole bunch of damage regardless. All of these abilities can be upgraded over time within skill-trees using coins that you earn while playing a level or completing certain challenges. Toss in weapons, ground attacks, and environmental attacks into the mix and you've got a fun little recipe for chaos and destruction.
However, that is also where the problem with the lack of a grasp of gameplay mechanics and balancing elements comes into play. You've got two Dojos from which to choose, Cobra Kai, and Miyagi-Do. The former is supposed to more attack and combo focused while the latter is supposed to be more defense and parry focused. In practice, Miyagi-Do characters just have more health and Cobra Kai characters just do more damage. Apart from that, I found it easier to play as Miyagi Do since their abilities tend to cover more of the screen, and hence, get more enemies in the process, making them better at attacking as well. In contrast, you need to be careful with the Cobra Kai characters because they feel pretty fragile in comparison. Their attacks, while more damaging, don't really target as many enemies either, making them harder to play with. Aside from these minor differences, however, there really isn't much of a difference in gameplay regardless of which Dojo you choose to play as. If anything, the Cobra Kai skill trees seem to award more points that anything practical.
Then there's the lacklustre level-design. While the game keeps introducing new enemies every now and then, the formula doesn't really get a chance to switch up that often. A wider variety of weapons or environmental attacks could've been introduced for more variety. Not only that, but the enemies could've come with a wider variety of unique restrictions as well. And the game tries doing all that as well. It's just that there are far more stages than there is variety among them, making each stage feel more like just another reskinned version of the previous one. Some bosses, at least, do offer some much needed variety to the game, making it feel just that much more rewarding for a brief moment in time. And the true final boss of the game is such a complete twist from the formula for the rest of the game that beating him is a puzzle in and of itself; One that I found myself solving completely by accident. There is another issue about how the New Game+ mode doesn't really offer much by value in this game and that's how you need to outscore your performance at any location to earn more coins from it. While you do carry any coins left over from your previous playthrough, which translates to a better starting boost, gaining coins later on in the game is a taller order, especially if your first playthrough was especially good.
The enemy AI in this game, on the other hand, is something. It sometimes seems adaptive and lets you win when you stand idle too long or start taking too many hits in a row. At others, it seems practically merciless. This problem is further exacerbated when you've got a literal horde of fifteen enemies on screen with zero unit-slotting all attacking you at the same time and stun locking you while they use their own team-based combinations to drain your health from full to near-zero. Sadly, this is one situation which occurs more often than I'd like to admit and the Cobra Kais, for whatever reason, seem succeptible to being stunned for longer and having a far shorter dodging window than their Miyagi-Do counterparts.At least your characters can be rescussitated if you score a high-enough combo.
The game does boast a watercoloured comic-book aesthetic during cutscenes and the graphics themselves are cel-shaded. It can actually look quite beautiful in certain parts. And the soundtrack is as close as it can get to the TV series that the game is based on. But what probably takes the cake is the fact that the same actors who played their roles in the TV series are the ones who handled the voice acting for the characters, lending to a greater sense of immersion for the cutscenes and dialogues, whether you notice it or not. But then again, that's perhaps one of the best parts about the game.
The rest of it is plagued by some severe optimisation issues and flat-out bugs. Aside from the failiures that I've already disclosed above, there are certain enemies in the game that like to constantly run in and out of the screen. Once they do, they'll take their own sweet time coming back within it and, consequently, within striking distance. The only way to bring them back in is to use a ranged attack towards where they're supposed to be. At other times, enemies just keep hanging around the edge of the screen and all you can do is wait for them to quite literally drop in. There have also been instances when I've been stuck behind an obstacle and couldn't get out because the camera decided to frame the scene as such. And then there have been moments when enemies and bosses have flown out beyond where we can reach and can no longer be attacked. The only solution is to restart the whole level. Beyond that, there are moments when attacks that are supposed to hit your enemies simply miss. Finally, there was also one instance where my progress was not saved forcing me to clear an entire level again.
All in all, Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues can be a fun game to kill the time, but that's about it. Between the poorly executed game mechanics, the plethora of bugs, and the complete lack of anything remotely resembling a story between start and end, it's not particularly enjoyable as a game and has a tendency to get mundanely repetitive the longer you play it. It's fun enough. Just not that fun. A rather meh recommendation if anything.
