Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage Review

You are already dead.  If you are familiar with the manga or anime series Fist of the North Star, then you know how often that phrase was uttered by the main character Kenshiro.  While several video games have been created based on the series, only a few made it to the States.  You would have thought that a beat

Kenshiro is not your typical man.  He is an expert in the martial art of Hokuto Shinken.  The martial art focuses on doing massive damage by hitting acupressure points.  By using a few quick hard hits, an enemy can be totally defenseless and dead in a matter of seconds.  The effect is so brutal that the enemy can be stunned for a few seconds and then explode into a bloody mess.

 

In FotNS: Ken

The levels all seem to hold the same pattern.  You go through a series of areas, beat up the bad guys, and then face a boss at the end of the level.  Other objectives pop-up during the process, like protecting civilians, but most of the time you can just defeat the gangs.  You

Bosses require a little different tactic.  You need to slowly break down their health to a point where they are struggling.  Then you perform a special move to get rid of the rest of their health.  Once they are down to their knees you perform a finishing move.  While this sounds like something powerful, it

Skill points are used to upgrade Kenshiro.  With the skill points you can affect intrinsic skills and extrinsic skills.  Intrinsic skills include increasing his life gauge, attack and defensive power, and increasing the number of Spirit Reserves he has.  Extrinsic skills increase the effectiveness of items you pick up in the levels, weaken characters, and increases your attack power when your life is low.

 

While all of this sounds like the basics of a good game, there are a lot of underlying issues.  First of all, the gang members have very little variety to them.  With the exception of some hair styles, they look incredibly similar.  It also doesn

The balance of Ken