Review: Fist of the North Star – Ken’s Rage 2

The Fist of the North Star is set the not too distant future — originally set in the 1990s when first released in Japan in 1983 — in a Mad Max style post-apocalyptic desert wasteland brought about by nuclear war. The central character is a man named Kenshiro, who is the heir to a sacred, deadly North Star based martial art known as Hokuto Shinken.

As only one heir can be selected per generation, Kenshiro had to compete with three of his fellow “brothers” to be named the successor to Hokuto Shinken and in doing so made enemies of two of his older “brothers” who took it as an insult that their little brother should have been chosen over them. They also did not take kindly to the prospect of having their fists sealed and forbidden to practise Hokuto Shinken for the rest of their lives. There are other fighting styles practised throughout the land, principal of which is Nanto Shinken, which as the cross of the Southern Star, is destined to be at odds with those of the North Star.

Kenshiro, also known as Ken, is also widely referred to with trepidation as “The Man with the Seven Scars,” as he has seven scars on his chest in the formation of the Northern Star constellation. Ken’s story sees him travelling the dusty, destroyed world protecting the weak and the needy by fist fighting with many other martial art masters (including the six masters of Nanto), and ridding the world of a number of entire gangs of crazy themed psychos – all with nothing but his explosive fists powered by the ancient assassination art of Hokuto Shinken. It is a tale of brotherly betrayals, double crosses, last-minute death-bed confessions, people that had “chosen to walk the path of the demon” all their lives suddenly finding respect for Kenshiro’s compassion, and is filled with more lengthy monologues about love and honour than an apologetic Nintendo shareholder meeting on Valentine’s day.

Kenshiro makes use of the newly added dodge feature in an early Boss Battle.

I mention the story so heavily in the front of this review because Ken’s Rage 2 is a complete slave to the detailed story set out by the anime series and original manga comic book it was based on. If the story does not interest you, then it is unlikely that the game itself will have many redeeming qualities. In modern terms, Ken’s Rage 2 is graphically sub standard (a casual observer to me playing remarked, not unfairly “This game looks about ten years old!”), and there are many factors about the design and form of the game that feel very antiquated and out of touch.

But somehow this also makes it feel like a more old-school traditional Japanese video game. I missed getting my health by collecting whole roast chickens, that for some unknown reason, just sit on the ground — something that I am sure modern day health & safety would have a field day with. It even has a decent manual in the box for that extra “old game” authenticity.

There are a number of graphical glitches and other minor technical complaints. The main battle engine, which is based on the Dynasty Warriors engine, supports hundreds of character models, but generally 98% the exact same character model. The properly rendered cut scenes are the only time this game looks on par with something from this generation, but are all too few and far between and most of the story is told via in-engine cut scenes or in a (Japanese manga styled) motion comic setting – and all of those options come with subtitles and no choice of an English voice track (I did not even know you could do that any more!). I would entirely forgive anyone that hated this game, but I adore it.

Juza (of the Clouds) is certainly a character made for comedy relief. Expect butt-slapping taunts and cheesy thumbs-up grin poses.

I can power through the repetitious nature of the combat, the poor graphics and the odd difficulty spike, but only because this allowed me to go deeper into a story that I have always had a passion for. I own the first six DVDs of the TV series and have never been able to find the rest in the UK. Essentially I had watched parts one to six repeatedly and this game allowed me to play parts one to twenty-eight of the story. This meant that after years I was finally able to see the conclusion of a story that I had been unable to in any other format. Not only did I see the entire arc of Kenshiro’s story being brought to a conclusion, but I also got to see twists on the part of the plot that I knew well (turns out the first bad guy was not as bad as first thought), and also got to see the progression of other characters — the most startling of which is seeing the young children that travel with Ken in his early years, all grown up and now with their own deadly fighting styles.

This is one thing that Ken’s Rage 2 does do really well, the representation of fighting styles. Within the confines of the engine, various combat techniques are very well realised and being able to carry out the zany, deadly Signature moves that I have only seen in animes for years, felt enjoyable and satisfying. Developer, Omega Force, have done a really good job of capturing the essence of each fighting style and, with the help of some liberally used Quick Time Events, allow you to utilize the same finishing moves used in the original source material. The various fighting styles feel reasonably different from one another and helped break up the repetition of combat. You are often given the choice of two or three characters to play as, this (along with merely achieving a better letter grading) might be a reason to replay certain levels, but I suspect this does not change what happens too much and you are always switched back to the necessary character (usually Ken) for any major boss battle you must face anyway. These boss battles are Ken’s Rage 2‘s strong points and I much preferred being thrust into a difficult one-on-one battle rather than another slightly too easy field of weaklings.

Rin and Bat get to grow up and fight back!

Once you have reached the end of any other character’s involvement with the story in the main Legend Mode (usually by them dying) then they will be available to use in the Dream Mode, which can be played on or offline as a single or multiplayer game (up to four teams of two), with a character of your choosing. This Dream mode tasks you with capturing bases in an encampment. Once five bases have been captured then the boss for that level will appear, beat him and you will be victorious. It is a fairly simply addition, but works well enough and also gives an additional alternative side story to the character you are playing. As there are 21 playable characters available it gives you a fair amount of game to be getting on with. There was not a huge number of people on the servers, but I was able to jump into a random match after about five minutes of waiting and from the little I saw, it seemed like quite a stable connection — although this was a little difficult to tell as human-controlled characters tended to not hang around on the same screen for very long.

The main Legend Mode takes roughly twenty four hours to complete, but I honestly think it would have been a better game if it just stripped out some of the gameplay variations it tries to add. The Stealth sections and projectile throwing mechanic are unpolished to the point of not being fun and are almost unplayable at times. This game may be ten years out of date, but as we are still yet to learn how much gamers hate escort missions, I will not hold that against it too much.

I was very torn on my final review score — do I rate it based on what most people would think, or what I think? I could argue for either case. In the end I decided to average the two. If you have no interest in the Dynasty Warriors game with a Fist of the North Star theme, then you probably might want to knock a barrel off that grade. However, if there is the odd (in both senses of the word) person like me out there with a real passion for an unfinished Kenshiro Fist-story then you may be crazy enough to add a barrel.