A good classic from SMS! A nice beat´em-up for its time.
The game has nice graphics, good music, reasonable gameplay and the right level of difficulty. The music is fine for what SMS could do. When i was a kid, this game took me some months until i could find out the bosses secret weaknesses while mastering how to pass through the stages.
With a simple gameplay, it might become addictive. Just jump (pressing up), high jump (down then up), kick and punch. Not to mention the hundreds of enemies that won´t stop showing up until you finish the stage. As a matter of fact, the fighting through the stage, sometimes with 3 enemies at once plus an annoying eagle on stage 4, makes you develop a quick-thinking sense and good reflexes (well, you better do if you want to finish this game...). The game might seem very simple at first, but the bosses and mini-bosses will test your abilities, that´s for sure.
At the top of the screen, sometimes some stuff will pass "flying" there to help our hero, Riki. Jump high to reach some food if you´re low on health; also, try to get the japanese word "KA" (power), written in red - the music changes and RIKI becomes invincible and can´t lose health for a while (you quickly lost the power if you get hit too many times). And at last but not least, after beating 20 (i guess) bad dudes, you regain a bit of health too.
Ah, the bad-sub-stage-and-final-stage-bosses. The best parts of this game, in my opinion.
The mini-bosses will show up in certain moments of the game. Some are easy, some are pretty annoying. Actually, some mini-bosses can rip off more health from you than the final stage bosses. And i think they are more challenging than the final guys.
The stage bosses were always my favorite part into this game: when you get there, your character (RIKI) its bigger on the screen, same for the boss and the scenario. The life gauges were blue and red, and you have to knock-out the boss into a street fighter style, while listening to a simple challenging music. After mastering each of the bosses weaknesses, the fight against them become a lot easy. But the last guy, Wang, still give us a little work to beat.
This game is also a bit short, but it´s a nice and fun game for the SMS. Worth the play, definitively.
And two little tips for you, people:
1) Infinite lives - start the game. After the red screen (showing riki´s remaining lives and chapter number), a BLACK screen will briefly blank. At this EXACT time, press and hold RESET. The game will seem to be tilted, with a black screen, Riki sliding smoothly at the top of the screen then dying without any sound...after that, release RESET and you should have infinite lives!
2) Fight all bosses in a row - After beating the final boss, getting your girlfriend back and the white japanese letter shows up in the red screen, start rotating the directional button clockwise while pressing the 2 buttons... the game will restart and you will fight all the bosses at once!
And if you have the curiosity, try looking for the original version of this game: "HOKUTO NO KEN - FIST OF THE NORTH STAR". It´s harder, with better graphics, storyline, cut-scenes and music!
Thanks for reading my review and sorry for my crappy English!!
Cristiano "HarvestDude" Kolling