Hokuto Musou / Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage (X360, PS3) (2010)
Developer: Koei

Review by Faididi and Co.

Oh shit, he's using horse steroids again!

Story: Average

Koei's Hokuto Musou (Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage) is based on the classic manga and anime series, Hokuto no Ken. It tells the tale of the martial artist hero, Kenshiro, and his adventures in a brutal, post-apocalyptic wasteland, where all the men are hyper-muscled terrors who battle each other to the death while subsisting on steroids and regularly ripping off their shirts to bare their rock-hard pecs. All joking aside, this story is notable for holding strong onto its relatively serious, unabashedly macho tones for almost three decades, and it remains free of the silly tropes that eventually creep into other long-lived series. (Don't expect to find any banal humor or superpowered magical girls.) Too bad none of that can save the game from its problems, and some of the cutscenes' backgrounds and the in-level environments don't even match.

Gameplay: Poor

On the surface, Hokuto Musou looks like another passable entry in the Musou tactical action fighter series, featuring mass combat in huge environments. Like Gundam Musou (Dynasty Warriors: Gundam), it offers two main modes of play, one following the original story arc (up to the final duel against Raoh) and the other featuring new tales exclusively made for the game. (Jagi's comedic story here is admittedly worth seeing.) However, if excessive masculinity is all the rage in Hokuto no Ken, then we'll be blunt about Hokuto Musou: it sucks. Had it merely adhered to the stale formula of the previous Musou games, it wouldn't have been so bad, but it suffers from baffling flaws that leave it as the worst installment to date.

First, the original story mode botches the Musou essentials. Its linear level design gives little sense of ongoing fighting occurring elsewhere across the areas. It also lacks 2-Player support, like in the similarly limited Chou Battle Houshin (Mystic Heroes). As if daring you to hate the game more, the bosses in this mode must be finished off with stupid, random button-prompt challenges that have nothing to do with the strength and finesse of martial arts. There is no reason why it can't play the same as the extra story mode, which retains the 2-Player support and drops the button-prompt garbage.

No matter which mode you play, Hokuto Musou is plagued with ghastly problems. The horribly sluggish controls and the awkwardly slow movement transitions make every action tortuous to perform, whether it's turning in the middle of attacking or it's stopping to break open an item box. All the levels share the same desert scenery and are populated with the same three lousy types of common enemies. The upgrade system is simplistic, too. Instead of earning proper experience points or exploring for accessories, your characters must fulfill kill quotas to acquire skill points, which are used to obtain all the upgrades available in the game. As such, there's zero incentive to explore except to find a few energy-restoring supplies, making the levels even duller.

Controls: Poor

The slow, unresponsive controls are so nasty that we wouldn't blame you if you're being skeptical. As if the time-consuming animation lag for motions as simple as basic punches isn't bad enough, the motorbike vehicles turn like shit. The camera's distance from your character is automatically determined, leaving it at the mercy of the current area. Unlike in the classic Musou games, the mission event cutscenes can't be skipped, making each opening or closing of a gate an irritating interruption.

Graphics: Average

The level design's colors are so limited that the item boxes blend in with the rest of the sandy, ever-yellow scenery. The characters remain faithful to their original appearances while gaining updated details, but the gooey hemorrhaging and gore effects for defeated enemies look awkward (even in light of Japanese laws regarding depictions of violence). The playable characters also have clothing-damage effects that occur when they lose enough stamina, but these effects are minor to the point of being unnecessary.

Audio: Above Average

Similar to Gundam Musou, Hokuto Musou brings back as much of its own original cast as possible, which means you can at least enjoy the great voice acting and kung fu screaming (although Zoser sounds quite different). The repetitive phrases from the common enemies aren't as good, and despite the rocking music being true to the source's spirit, some of the tunes consist of one short riff looping over and over again, making you want to puke.

Overall: Poor

Successive installments in a series, whether direct sequels or not, are supposed to be smarter and more advanced, but that clearly isn't the case here. Hokuto Musou isn't what Hokuto no Ken deserves, not when, against all expectations, it's the worst installment in the whole group of Musou tactical action games. Its awful controls, half-missing 2-Player support, boring-ass level and enemy designs, and other stupid problems have no place in any serious action game in this era.

Updated Version: Poor

The updated version of Hokuto Musou (the exported versions and the International edition of the Japanese version) contains a few improvements that supposedly make things better. Among them are the corrected accuracy for some (but not all) special attacks, the tighter turning controls for the motorbikes, and the option to switch between the original voice acting and the dubbed acting.

Nevertheless, the game remains shitty, because it fails to fix the basic controls' stiffness, and the gate-opening cutscenes still can't be skipped. To piss you off, additional glitches work their way into this updated version. A dialogue freeze at one point can ruin your session (before you're allowed to save your progress) and temporarily wreck your console's audio output. This game needs to go fuck itself.