I discovered Fist of the North Star at a far too young age. My family had bought a random issue of the Viz single-issue release and the violence and casual nudity blew my mind. Fast forward nearly a decade and I watch the animated movie and it blew my mind once again. Fist of the North Star had all the ingredients to make an awesome action game: martial arts, violence, and an awesome story. How can you screw that up? Somehow the developers found a way. This is a sad bastardization of the awesome manga.
Here’s a quick summary of the series’ plot: Fist of the North Star follows Kenshiro as he travels the nuclear wasteland, first to find his stolen love Yuria and then to determine the true successor of the Hokuto Shinken style of martial arts. Trust me that is only a surface level synopsis, I could go on for pages. This particular game takes place during the Tentei story arc of the manga, one of its final arcs. Seeing as the series was little known in the US it made no difference in terms of localization.
Fist of the North Star has had numerous video game adaptations that continue even to this day. The Famicom would receive four titles, one of which is a role-playing game which, considering Hokuto no Ken’s history, doesn’t sound like a bad idea. What would be released in the US is actually the second NES title. Unfortunately, Taxan picked the worst game to localize. It also didn’t help that I played this at the same time as Ninja Gaiden. Now granted they are in different genres but let’s be serious, which would you rather spend your time with?
Fist of the North Star is a bloody mess as Kenshiro makes heads explode left and right. The Hokuto Shinken style focuses on hitting pressure points for different effects, most often causing heads to erupt. Surprisingly the game enables that. Ken can attack with punches or kicks with each having benefits. Kicks have longer reach but punches will cause noggins to burst and items to sometimes appear. I suppose the crude graphics and lack of any red stuff are the reason Nintendo of America let it through. It is funny to think about though.
There are very few power-ups in the game although oddly it makes sense. If you could blow up dudes with a touch would you need anything else? Golden bracelets grant invincibility and a shadow clone for double the power. Now that I think about it it might be the game’s equivalent of Musou Tensei. Stars fill a gauge that once full causes his shirt to explode. Your power increases, you move faster, and can also chuck fireballs. As cool as that sounds this power-up isn’t that great for several reasons.
For a game focused on melee action the hit detection is awful and completely ruins it. Against the normal rank and file your punches will almost always hit. Kicking is where the problems start. A good portion of the time enemies will walk through your flying feet which is annoying. Sure, you could punch them in the face but sometimes you want to maintain your distance. It becomes especially frustrating during boss battles where it starts to become a toss up as to whether your attacks will hit or not.
Oh the boss fights. You kind of expect the bosses in a beat em up to be overpowered. Fist of the North Star takes that to a ridiculous extreme. Every boss has a weak spot on their body that yields significant damage. Managing to target that point is a nightmare with the bad hit detection. The problem is that seemingly also applies to you. It isn’t out of the ordinary to lose 2/3 of your health from a single attack. Hell sometimes you’ll die instantly from one hit! There is no rhyme or reason behind it and nearly all the end game bosses can do this. It goes beyond being unfair to plain infuriating.
I won’t even say Fist of the North Star is difficult. The game is plain frustrating. Early on the enemies are so stupid they will walk into your attacks. Aside from the maze of Stage two you might even think the game will be a breeze. But the third level a switch is flipped and it goes off the rails. Enemies become more resilient and almost always toss weapons. You will rarely leave any exchange without taking damage and health items are exceedingly rare. Its better to avoid combat altogether and even that is impossible. Watch in disbelief as enemies randomly slide kick in midair to catch you. You’ll be lucky to reach any boss with half health. Your reward for enduring all this nonsense is…. nothing. The game immediately cuts to the credits. I spared you a lot of frustration. Thank me later.
In Closing
Few Fist of the North Star titles have been released in the US. Even so you are better off avoiding this. Play the Koei musou style games, the import only fighting game or Sega’s upcoming Yakuza styled spinoff. Anything but this.
