153. Hokuto no Ken (SIMS, PS2, 2005)

After trying the first 2 Famicom Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) games and having a pretty bad time, I figured I would at least get it over with and play the other similar Hokuto no Ken game I have that was released as part of the SEGA AGES 2500 line of 3D remakes of old Sega games.. This one is a Playstation 2 remake of a Japanese Sega Master System game, which was released as Black Belt internationally without the Hokuto no Ken license. The original Master System version is playable, which is a cool inclusion, so I gave it a shot. It controlled almost identically to the 2 Famicom titles, but it felt much better to actually play, and had some nice parallax scrolling effects. While I prefer it to the Famicom Hokuto no Ken games, it was also not a whole lot of fun.

The PS2 Hokuto no Ken remake, on the other hand, I did manage to have some fun with. The remade game is complete with 3D graphics and a whole slew of new abilities, and an actual story (though it is just told through talking heads and text boxes). In addition to the 2 attack buttons (and up to jump, which still doesn't feel great), you can press square to start glowing and burn some kind of meter, I assume this ups your attack. You also have another meter in the shape of the big dipper that fuels your special attacks. Once you have enough meter, special attacks are executed with triangle, and you can cycle through your various specials with the shoulder buttons. Some take up more meter than others, and some are more defensive while others are offensive.

All of the stages are just flat areas (like the Master System original), and once you defeat enough enemies a miniboss will appear. Standard enemies only take 1 hit, but some throw projectiles. Minibosses take maybe 5 hits to defeat but are also otherwise easy to dispatch. Really, these parts of the levels were just mindless fun punching dudes and waiting for the special meter to fill up enough to set up some cool specials. Boss fights actually felt like I was playing a super simplified, janky fighting game, but bosses have the same general amount of health and access to special attacks as you do, and fighting a boss with a similar moveset is one of my favorite things to do in a video game. While the whole game has a budget feel to it, it also somewhat modernizes the formula of these old crappy Hokuto no Ken games into something that I at least had a lot more fun with.

3/5, its not pretty or sophisticated, but it has its moments