Having brought Prince of Persia kicking and screaming into the 21st century, Jordan Mechner is looking to do the same thing again with his 1984 classic martial arts scrapper, Karateka. According to Venturebeat, Mechner has raised money for the project through an investor, and is currently working with a small dev team on resurrecting Karateka for XBLA.

"Making the original Karateka was a labour of love," Mechner told Venturebeat. "To have so many people embrace it and share their stories of playing it has been really rewarding. I am always surprised to hear how much impact that game had. In remaking Karateka, I want to honour the original game with a compact, pick-up-and-play game that is fluid, atmospheric, and beautiful."

Karateka tells the story of a black belt badass who storms the fortress of an evil warlord to rescue a princess. Like Prince of Persia, it was pioneering at the time with it's lovely 2D animation, so hopefully the XBLA remake will prove to be just as glorious when it releases later in the year.

[Via Joystiq]