Hokuto no Ken

"Move over Splatterhouse, you've got a competitor in the gore department."

To say this game is gruesome is a severe understatement, but I'd be lying if I said that this isn't what makes this game so much damn fun. Fist of the North Star stays true to it's anime roots by incorporating the overall story found in the anime that unfortunately accompanies itself with some problems in gameplay.

Graphics-7/10
As of course with Playstation games in general, there are clipping and aliasing issues, but nothing that detracts from gameplay. Everything holds water in respect to the main character designs and the steroid-induced barbarian bikers who like to instigate more than which they can back up in a fight. Backgrounds pretty much look spot on to the locales in the anime, albeit some are slightly changed and others are completely.

Story-9/10
The story is fantastic as simplistic as it can be perceived. What more could you possibly ask for than to play the raging demon like Ken who seeks for revenge by beating anything and everything in his wake to a bloody pulp? Who said mindless martial art mayhem based violence with a great plot thrown in for good measure, can't be fun? I'll tell you who it wasn't, it sure as hell wasn't me. The story here is a near perfect excerpt from the anime. Traversing just about every locale and running into just about every arrogant, gauche and awfully inept body-building jackass. The low down- there's been a fall out; nuclear weapons went irate and winter ensued, leaving the Earth in complete shambles. Technology has been lost, and now it comes down to bare-bone survival. Chaos is all inclusive as numerous corrupted thugs/gangs pillage whats left of the innocent and good folk as opposed to helping restore what little peace they could upon the desolated Earth. All hope seems abandoned as no one can seem to stand up to these hardened thugs with supernatural powers in the upheaval, however, there is one man who rose from the desert, a mysterious man with seven scars, fueled by vengeance who knows the ultimate killing art that will condescend every punk he comes across in trying to help the weak and unfortunate. His name, Kenshiro, the successor to the unrivaled martial art known as Hokutoshinken.

Sound-8/10
From the sound effects to the opening theme, are great (You-ah-Shock!). The effects definitely let you know that you just severed someone's spinal cord and exploded their chest and head cavity in one blow. The music on the other hand is kind of moot, while it doesn't really give much of a driving point to beat off the baddies.

Gameplay-7/10
Gameplay while fun and keeps you hooked for awhile can suddenly drive into a ditch embankment and pretty damn fast to boot.

The play consists of punch, kick and jump commands along with a simultaneous punch and kick technique. It's a simplistic brawler in its own right , very comparable to the Final Fight series, that offers a little bit more, but we'll get to the best part later. You go through stages eliminating threats to the innocent people of various villages, because Ken is a 'protector' first and foremost, and a killer second. You eliminate these threats in the most brutal way possible, i.e-Internal explosion. Yes, Ken can devastate his foes with punches and kicks targeted at pressure/power points that disrupt blood particles and tissue to a human, much less anything that has a pulse, to make them explode so they become unidentifiable.

The premise sounds cool and it is..for about ten-twenty minutes due to the extreme lackluster amount of options/techniques Ken has at his disposal, or a ridiculous lack there of to keep the game motivating to play. Using the same regurgitated punch and kick combo surpasses the realm of being tedious and protrudes into boredom. There are different ways the punches, kicks and jumps can be chained, but not in enough ways to be entertaining enough to play for prolonged amounts of time. From a quick chain of punches by tapping the punch button repeatedly to roundhouse kicks do get redundant.

However, two things can keep your anticipation hooked (well one thing, the other is just icing on the cake). The icing on the cake being, the extreme blood and gore that Ken is capable of dishing out. Just about everyone that's touched by Ken, bursts like blood pinatas. It's fun to watch, but it's also something that gets repetitive, as it happens to everyone that gets on Ken's bad side.

The other is by far the best thing about this game, something that's full of eccentricity. When fighting specific thugs, but mostly boss's and you happen to whittle down their life to nothing, making them flash in the process, you are taken to an input screen by hitting the right commands. These commands are in the form of fists in certain directions that correspond to square, triangle, X and O buttons. When done correctly in the short allotted time, you unleash a chain of attacks that completely maim your opposition. You thought Ken's regular bursting combos were bad, take a gander at these awesome cut scenes. Most of these are rendered cutscenes in which Ken deals with his enemies in the anime.

It's a fairly long game with fourteen chapters depicting the story with brief fighting sequences thrown in. The focus here is definitely the story, as the fights are rather short, that serve mainly as an interlude. Kind of unorthodox as it's usually the other way around. It's a treat for those who enjoy FotNS/HnK, but doesn't necessarily promote itself otherwise with the lack of depth.

Furthermore, Hokuto no Ken is very hard. Not good, fair, challenging and rewarding hard, instead, it's abusive and downright ridiculous hard. Enemies do telegraph when they hit by flashing, but the draw distance, closing the gap to the enemy is hard to do in this integrated environment. It's clunky and it's a detriment most of the time. Boss's use these near invulnerable techniques with barely any recovery time and warning, and abuse them nauseatingly to the point of maddening frustration which leads to using constant continues. It's nowhere near ironic or coincidental when the only way you can obtain these boss's or main characters in two-player is to beat them in the story without using continues, rather, it's an element to piss the player off in the hopes of either giving them motivation to play or to break the game, leading to other illegal acts of uncontrollable violence.

Replayability-6/10
When you've gone through the experience once, there really isn't anything to warrant much of a play through other than some of the bells and whistles attached, such as the movie edit mode, unlocking boss's in vs, and a survival deathmatch, and the awesome boss fight finish scenes.

Over All, This game offers entertainment in the form of gore, it's boss fights and special finish techniques and it's unlockables and plot. Quite a lot of things to look forward to and be happy about if it weren't for the horrendous redundancy due to a lack of techniques. Definitely recommended to the fans of the series or simplistic beat em' ups.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/03, Updated 05/09/04