Excellent 2D artwork and crude difficulty make this game worth while to play for any fighting fans.
This game titled 'Hokuto no Ken: Shinpan no Sōsōsei Kengō Retsuden' translates to Fist of the Big Dipper: The Twin Blue Stars of Judgment - Grand History of the Fist. Developed for the arcades and has be ported onto the Playstation 2. This 2D beat-em up proves different and does have features which are different from other games.
The modes include Arcade, Survival and Battle, but the mode which stands out the most is the History mode, where you can play very difficult battles and depending on how you perform, you can unlock historic moments in a form of images, these unlockables are not much expect it tells a story in this mode, however the true challenge are the battles and make it worth while to play, speciality for hardcore players.
The artwork is amazing and what every 2D fighting game needs, the artists really put their time and effort into creating the gritty amazing artwork in the game, the stages and characters looks polished and exactly what the manga original looks like.
Another key feature in this game are the fatal moves, similar to the fatalities to Mortal Kombat, each player as a gauge with 7 stars, shaped like the 'big dipper', when it's depleted, the other player can perform the deadly fatal move, which can knock the player out during the battle.
This game really does represent the true quality to Fist of the North Star and I really enjoyed playing this game. It's in the Sega the Best collection and is worth the buy.