Flashy moves, good development system and good storyline do not compensate for shallow and boring gameplay.
User Rating: 5 | Hokuto Musou X360
"Fist Of The North Star" or "Hokuto No Ken (***)" is quite a well known series in Japan, but unfortunately less known in countries other than that. Game takes place in post-apocalyptic world, totally devastated by nuclear blasts and where shallow brute force is the rule. From there player meets game protagonist Kenshiro - master of Hokuto Shinken. A secret assassin art which main aspects are precision strikes to the vital point of the human body, devastating it from within. First thing probably the player will notice is that Kenshiro combat moves are quite sluggish and take a while to adapt to. That is not entirely a bad thing, but leaves not quite a good impression. Special signature moves however are made to look great and easy to use. Enemies are very generic and player will not see much changes from the standard pallette in the whole game unfortunately. Even bosses use almost the same pallette over and over again with some exceptions. Storyline is well made, but for people not familiar with the Hokuto No Ken manga is hard to grasp until later in the game. Also Kenshiro is not the only one playable character in the game so at least there is some variety to the fighting style. Locations are generic and look all the same all the time with only some small exceptions. So unless you are a big fan of the Hokuto No Ken - I doubt you will like this game. RESULTS: GOOD - nice storyline, nice selection of characters and special moves, good development system, good music. BAD - generic and boring common battles, locations are almost all the same, visual flaws (for example inability to jump where Ken visually could), enemies are generic and lacking variety, badly made map, sluggish controls.
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