"Behold - my MANLY punches ! Aaa-tatatatatata !"

Originality in video games is a rare occurrence indeed.

For the most part, games tend to add upon an existing idea; meat around the bone as we often hear. In fact, many great ''classics'' are little more than improved versions of already existing games. Why, one could argue that video games have not significantly evolved all that much in the last 20 years or so (as far as the basic logic of the game goes)...

There are times when a game truly breaks new grounds by putting forth a new paradigm - a proverbial epistemological rupture in the world of gaming.

Sadly, the Fist of the North Star series falls quite far from that tree...

Given the notorious reputation of the first installment, the very idea of reviewing it's sequel might make me seem like a masochist. Rest assured, Toei made significant improvements over their, shall we say, mediocre previous offering so that this game (although not the best side scrolling action game of all time by a longshot) is a much less taxing experience. In fact, it is a very MANLY experience indeed !

Let us be clear and structured then and explore...

The never-existing story

Obviously this game will give you no clue as to your motivation (other than being amused at the idea of making heads explode) for even pursuing this apparently desperate journey. Besides the name of the stage boss, you're given little information on everything and anything.

Now, understand that fans of the FotNS anime and manga (bless their little hearts) often find more enjoyment in the over the top violence than in the slightly confusing yet completely silly story. Still, having some idea of what you're doing would be nice...

The manual, however, does insert a small blurb to explain everything. Apparently, you're out to ''free your people'' from the clutches of some evil tyrant named Shula, Emperor Heaven. So you embark upon a journey into this Empire and reduce an army of clones into quivering masses of intestines, facing one dangerous boss after another before meeting the fabled Emperor Heaven.

A fan of the series informed me that the manual (and possibly the game itself) managed to make quite a few mistakes with the story. Seems the last boss you face is NOT Emperor Heaven, no matter what the game and its manual say. There are other cases, but I'm not going to delve into this controversy. Know that I'm as shocked as you are faithful reader - someone should warn Toei right this minute ! Fools they be, how dare they deprive us of the glorious (and exact) details of this MANLY story ? I feel an urge to use some...

Graphic violence !

Graphic violence indeed ! FotNS fans rejoice, Toei has kept the exploding heads that you've grown to love and cherish !

Taking into account the fact that this game's predecessor was a complete mess with seizure inducing colour schemes and unforgivable mistakes (not to mention that the sequel is vintage '87 Nintendo) the graphics here aren't quite as bad as you'd expect...

Granted the victims of your ''explosion punch'' are not going to meet their end in a quite graphic (and grisly !) full torso explosion as in the original, yet they remain exploded enough to bring a smile of satisfaction on the face of any perturbed 13 year old.

The stages have a lot more variety than before, and some, like the 3rd stage, show what Toei were capable of when they put in some efforts - yes, Toei, efforts, doesn't sound like them at all huh ?

Besides the 3rd stage, the graphics grow repetitive as the old palette swap routine for both ''outside''/''inside'' levels establishes itself and sticks around like an obnoxious house guest. Sure they drew a little series of lines here or there, or maybe even added a diamond pattern to a wall or something, yet, it's still the same freakin' wall design with a different colour !

As for the rest, imagine a poor man's Castlevania with but one type of perpetually cloning set of fist fodder attacking you with their 2-3 frames of animation. And I will avoid boring you with the details on the rest of the animation in this game... I tend to refer to our MANLY hero's punches as the ''punching flurry of choppy frame rate !''

By the way, Nintendo's policy on graphic violence seems to have mysteriously vanished for this game. The predecessor was not distributed in North America, or at least saw very little distribution, so one might understand how it passed through the filtering process of Nintendo of America... but as for the sequel... come on... exploding heads ? maybe hey didn't hear it since...

The silence deafens my ears

Well, fine for you, but this game's music might just do the same thing.

Standard Nintendo bleeps and looping midi accompany our MANLY Kenshirou's squeals. I'll be fair and admit that the third stage had some rather nifty music - but rest assured that the third stage of this game is the exception to the rule in many, many ways.

On the other hand, we're dealing with vintage Nintendo here, so let us not expect too much and agree that the music is more or less standard fare and be done with it.

The sound effects are just as standard as the music. However, we do find the trademark ''atatatatatatata'' which any and all FotNS fans will recognise instantly. Although annoying, it just wouldn't be the same without it...

Undo Control

Oh dear, now this is where things get a bit more difficult.

While it is true that your movements are fairly responsive, and even your wild jumping isn't too hard to keep under control, there are a few small mistakes that the creators somehow overlooked.

The first being that in his ultra MANLY shirt ripping mode, Kenshirou can launch fireballs by simultaneously pressing the A and B buttons. This said, you also need to press those two buttons to go through doors. One fireball requires the death of 20 fist fodder clones and therein lies the reason why this obvious mistake is so frustrating.

The second lies in the awful hit detection which almost matches that of Heroes of the Lance as far as quality is concerned. But while Heroes of the Lance has Sturm's moustache (of AWESOMENESS), this game offers little to redeem itself for this glaring flaw. It may be MANLY, but it certainly is not AWESOME like HotL (and Sturm's moustache).

You'll find yourself speaking in the tongue of the sailor on many occasions once you face the deadly sliding fist fodder of DOOM and are unable to hit them on a regular basis due to shaky hit detection...

Challenge for Power

Well, they certainly made this game more challenging than its predecessor. You can actually die in this one... yes, dead as in dead dead... Well more like destroyed, seeing as no one really dies in the fantasy world of 80's Nintendo games - they get destroyed instead. Don't believe me ? Read the manual for the KOEI game ''Bandit Kings of Ancient China.'' In any case, this idea sticks out like a sore thumb for any fans of the anime who'll surely protest that Kenshirou is much too MANLY to die at the hands of repeated poking from mere fist fodder.

While this is certainly true, this is a game and we all know what happened the last time they made Kenshirou an unstoppable torso exploding machine...

But the hit detection, as previously noted, is a cause for much concern in later stages of the game. Heck, even the first mini-bosses are very dangerous due to this inconsistent hit detection.

Now the challenge of this game comes not from memorising the attack patterns and the locations of your foes à la Castlevania or even Ninja Gaiden. Instead, it simply tries to overwhelm you by increasing the number of foes on screen and add annoying random projectile attacks - quantity over quality. The same applies to bosses who go from push-over to demi-god thanks to their increased rates of attack/damage, leaving you with little time to adjust. As I said, games haven't really progressed all that much in terms of their basic paradigm for the last 20 years or so.

The less MANLY version of Kenshirou stands no little to no chance against the second half of the game. Thus you are to finish the game WITHOUT losing a single life after, oh say, the third stage to avoid being stripped your precious power-ups. If the early bosses do not require a fully powered Kenshirou to face defeat, the later ones make even our MANLY hero seem like a wimpy girly man such as a Simon Belmont or a Ryu. Powering-up early is essential to progress in this game, but the insane challenge of the later bosses and their stages makes it all very annoying rather than challenging.

The End

Well, you managed to defeat this untamed beast with your fists of choppy frame rate. You faced the Emperor Heaven and showed him a thing or two all the while screaming ''Atatatatatata'' in his ears - so what now ? Well, I won't spoil the ending for you - that's the job of my walkthrough - however, I will warn you that once you go through this game, your are given few reasons to come back.

The novelty of seeing exploding heads wears off rather quickly, much like in the anime actually. And as I said before, the game doesn't require skill as much as luck and tenacity. The bosses can be defeated with a simple, yet annoying technique which feels rather cheap- but seeing as you have no other options (besides death) you won't find much in terms of extra enjoyment the second time through... Mind you, the first time through wasn't exactly a walk in the park either...

The Verdict

Well, it IS better than the first game, showing that Toei CAN improve their product if given proper motivation and time. Sadly, this alone does not make the second installment any more fun.

Yet, much like the anime, this game had a certain je ne sais quoi which always attracted me to it. I mention this in my walkthrough, but as I sat before the television screen as a youth, I was somewhat mesmerised by the funny exploding heads and frustrating gameplay. It set a challenge for me : it begged me to try and fight my way through it from one end to the other. Until recently, I had never reached that goal. Unfortunately, I do find myself feeling slightly empty as it gave me no real satisfaction to complete this game in the end.

Perhaps I'm asking too much of a game made in '87. It's not like Toei is known for its great games anyway. And compared to some other liscence-based games (like some of those from LJN), this one isn't too bad and does some justice to the anime and manga which inspired it.

So I'll be nice and give it a 5, if only because of Kenshirou's MANLY punching squeal and the exploding heads... and the fact that '87 didn't provide us with that many ''awe inspiring'' games of the genre to begin with... Well there was this little game by Konami... what was it called again ? Castlevania - right. Just make sure to play THIS game before Castlevania...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have people to explode... Atatatatatatatatata !!!

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Asplagis - master of the exploding punch

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/02, Updated 03/21/02