Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage Review

    When I first started Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage, the game offered me two prompts. “Do you want to enable Easy Mode?” Of course not. “Do you want to enable extreme violence?” Of course I did! In the words of the game’s main protagonist Kenshiro, I was already dead. And then I contracted mononucleosis, so I was quite literally dead, or at least I felt like it for a few weeks. For that I feel I should apologize to Xugo members and readers, because this review comes almost a month later than it should have. The extra time I spent recuperating and recovering meant I had extra time to spend with the sky whale hack donuts game, and as I spent more time with it, I began to better appreciate just how much this game has to offer.Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage is a faithful reimagining of the original Japanese manga Fist of the North Star, an old classic that could easily be considered a cultural icon in Japan, and a long-standing cult hit among Western audiences. Ken’s Rage reboots the franchise with state-of-the-art visuals and current-gen gameplay, while still retaining the same dark, gritty, dog-eat-dog storytelling of the original work. Along with that, it offers many fan-favorite characters as playable, a non-canonical side-story mode, and multiple difficulties that will challenge the toughest warriors.

Because it’s a faithful remake of the classic manga, anyone familiar with the original series should already know the storyline. The only surprises fans of the series should expect are just how many story arcs the game covers: surprisingly little has been cut from the original story as far as important main characters go. For those that aren’t familiar with FotNS already, the game makes a basic effort to brief the player on the details of the story, but this is mostly done through text-based narrative descriptions between missions. These days, gamers more or less expect fully cinematic, movie-quality interludes in narrative-driven games, so the presentation of a long wall of text scrolling up the screen with a few character portraits transposed over it may be underwhelming to gamers that can’t fill in the blanks themselves. 

I personally thought it was satisfactory, but having seen the anime long before this game was even announced, I was able to fill in the blanks. My only real problem with the narrative delivery is that text-based narration can’t compare to actually reading the manga or watching the anime—Ken’s Rage should be considered thoroughly complimentary to the original series rather than a new retelling of an old story. You won’t get the full FotNS experience just from the game.Many gamers have compared Ken’s Rage to Koei’s Warriors series, and not without reason. Ken’s Rage was, after all, more or less openly billed as a Koei Warriors title in Japan, and only slightly less so here in the States. Though some might see this as a detractor, and may simply write Ken’s Rage off as yet another Warriors game, it’s actually contradictory to think Ken’s Rage is a bad game just by this association. The very nature of Fist of the North Star (the original manga) demands that a game based on it almost must be a game like Koei Warriors titles. Kenshiro wanders the wastes fighting hordes of enemies by himself: sounds familiar, but it’s also exactly what the series is. 

On the contrary, it is this familiar style of play that makes Ken’s Rage so wonderfully similar to its parent series. You wander vast expanses and, on occasion, fight hordes of enemies, just like in the manga! How that could possibly be a bad thing is beyond me.Unlike many Warriors titles, gameplay in Ken’s Rage has a surprising amount of depth. I often found myself drawing parallels to Capcom’s God Hand, if only briefly, as I further leveled Kenshiro’s abilities. Normal combo attacks can be chained together and finished with a strong attack, canceled with a jump, a super art or a strong attack, and many strong attacks can be immediately followed up with another or a new normal combo. If you’re a fighting game fan or just enjoy complexity in combat controls, you should happily spend your time on Ken’s Rage attempting to build a mighty infinite combo or loop that devastates regular groundlings better than any basic combo or attack.Gameplay between characters also changes quite thoroughly, so much so that latent abilities and status effects inflicted by your attacks differ between playable characters. 

Playable characters not only all feel and play completely differently, but they are divided into those that use Hokuto Shinken and those that use Nanto Seiken martial arts. The former inflict a state of paralysis on enemies, while the latter can enter a powered-up state with a different moveset after an unobtrusive QTE mid-battle. Boss battles are often little more than glorified battles against groundlings, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t entertaining nor challenging: they require a surprising level of skill, health and special ability conservation, and situational awareness. Not to mention the finishing technique against bosses is an incredible payoff: a lengthy multiple stage QTE sequence accompanied by a flurry of punches and Kenshiro’s satisfying trademark “AAAAATATATATATATATATA!” that finishes with a signature move and the boss’s explosive, violent death.  

     Oh, the violence, did I mention the violence? Gratuitous amounts of violence abound if you choose to turn it on. Enemies explode in one of a handful of preset death animations, and special fodder enemies like “corpulent fighters” (freakishly muscular and/or fat enemies) rarely have more than one animation. Despite the lacking variety, it’s always satisfying to watch enemies that aggravated you not seconds ago explode into a cloud of unidentifiable entrails and gallons of  blood. A cool HUD blood splatter effect dirties the screen if the camera is too close to an exploding enemy. It’s ridiculous and over-the-top and absolutely beautiful.I can’t say enough good things about Ken’s Rage. It’s a great game and fans will be delighted with how much raw gameplay is contained in one title. The amount of sheer playtime you get for your dollar is huge. Multiple playable characters with their own stages in the main story as well as unique side stories, and a Challenge Mode offer countless hours of entertainment. 

This is a game that you can marathon for one entire weekend and then play for 15 minutes every so often and still enjoy just as much as the last time, every time. That said, I’m a fan of the series, so I wonder how much of that enjoyment translates to gamers not familiar with Fist of the North Star. The story mode’s brief narrative leaps from story arc to story arc and may be confusing for anyone not already familiar with the parent series. In that regard, this may not be a game for everybody. Anyone that enjoys mindless violence will love this whether they understand what’s going on or not. Fans of the series will be delighted with how surprisingly accurate the game is, and how fun it can be to assume the role of their favorite characters.Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage (PS3 and 360) earns an 8 out of 10. I completed Kenshiro’s story mode, started on Rei’s, and played as every unlockable player in Dream Mode before writing this review. 

Overall I think I clocked around 34 hours of total playtime, and I’ve still got a ways to before I’m completely done with the game.  I should note that I encountered a glitch on the 360 version that basically made 45 minutes of playtime disappear, but I don’t think it’s something that can be reproduced very easily, so I’m not too worried about other readers encountering it.Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage Review

    When I first started Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage, the game offered me two prompts. “Do you want to enable Easy Mode?” Of course not. “Do you want to enable extreme violence?” Of course I did! In the words of the game’s main protagonist Kenshiro, I was already dead. And then I contracted mononucleosis, so I was quite literally dead, or at least I felt like it for a few weeks. For that I feel I should apologize to Xugo members and readers, because this review comes almost a month later than it should have. The extra time I spent recuperating and recovering meant I had extra time to spend with the game, and as I spent more time with it, I began to better appreciate just how much this game has to offer.Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage is a faithful reimagining of the original Japanese manga Fist of the North Star, an old classic that could easily be considered a cultural icon in Japan, and a long-standing cult hit among Western audiences. Ken’s Rage reboots the franchise with state-of-the-art visuals and current-gen gameplay, while still retaining the same dark, gritty, dog-eat-dog storytelling of the original work. Along with that, it offers many fan-favorite characters as playable, a non-canonical side-story mode, and multiple difficulties that will challenge the toughest warriors.

     Because it’s a faithful remake of the classic manga, anyone familiar with the original series should already know the storyline. The only surprises fans of the series should expect are just how many story arcs the game covers: surprisingly little has been cut from the original story as far as important main characters go. For those that aren’t familiar with FotNS already, the game makes a basic effort to brief the player on the details of the story, but this is mostly done through text-based narrative descriptions between missions. These days, gamers more or less expect fully cinematic, movie-quality interludes in narrative-driven games, so the presentation of a long wall of text scrolling up the screen with a few character portraits transposed over it may be underwhelming to gamers that can’t fill in the blanks themselves. I personally thought it was satisfactory, but having seen the anime long before this game was even announced, I was able to fill in the blanks. My only real problem with the narrative delivery is that text-based narration can’t compare to actually reading the manga or watching the anime—Ken’s Rage should be considered thoroughly complimentary to the original series rather than a new retelling of an old story. 

You won’t get the full FotNS experience just from the game.Many gamers have compared Ken’s Rage to Koei’s Warriors series, and not without reason. Ken’s Rage was, after all, more or less openly billed as a Koei Warriors title in Japan, and only slightly less so here in the States. Though some might see this as a detractor, and may simply write Ken’s Rage off as yet another Warriors game, it’s actually contradictory to think Ken’s Rage is a bad game just by this association. The very nature of Fist of the North Star (the original manga) demands that a game based on it almost must be a game like Koei Warriors titles. Kenshiro wanders the wastes fighting hordes of enemies by himself: sounds familiar, but it’s also exactly what the series is. On the contrary, it is this familiar style of play that makes Ken’s Rage so wonderfully similar to its parent series. You wander vast expanses and, on occasion, fight hordes of enemies, just like in the manga! How that could possibly be a bad thing is beyond me.Unlike many Warriors titles, gameplay in Ken’s Rage has a surprising amount of depth. I often found myself drawing parallels to Capcom’s God Hand, if only briefly, as I further leveled Kenshiro’s abilities. Normal combo attacks can be chained together and finished with a strong attack, canceled with a jump, a super art or a strong attack, and many strong attacks can be immediately followed up with another or a new normal combo. If you’re a fighting game fan or just enjoy complexity in combat controls, you should happily spend your time on Ken’s Rage attempting to build a mighty infinite combo or loop that devastates regular groundlings better than any basic combo or attack.Gameplay between characters also changes quite thoroughly, so much so that latent abilities and status effects inflicted by your attacks differ between playable characters. Playable characters not only all feel and play completely differently, but they are divided into those that use Hokuto Shinken and those that use Nanto Seiken martial arts. The former inflict a state of paralysis on enemies, while the latter can enter a powered-up state with a different moveset after an unobtrusive QTE mid-battle. Boss battles are often little more than glorified battles against groundlings, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t entertaining nor challenging: they require a surprising level of skill, health and special ability conservation, and situational awareness. Not to mention the finishing technique against bosses is an incredible payoff: a lengthy multiple stage QTE sequence accompanied by a flurry of punches and Kenshiro’s satisfying trademark “AAAAATATATATATATATATA!” that finishes with a signature move and the boss’s explosive, violent death.  

     Oh, the violence, did I mention the violence? Gratuitous amounts of violence abound if you choose to turn it on. Enemies explode in one of a handful of preset death animations, and special fodder enemies like “corpulent fighters” (freakishly muscular and/or fat enemies) rarely have more than one animation. Despite the lacking variety, it’s always satisfying to watch enemies that aggravated you not seconds ago explode into a cloud of unidentifiable entrails and gallons of  blood. A cool HUD blood splatter effect dirties the screen if the camera is too close to an exploding enemy. It’s ridiculous and over-the-top and absolutely beautiful.I can’t say enough good things about Ken’s Rage. It’s a great game and fans will be delighted with how much raw gameplay is contained in one title. The amount of sheer playtime you get for your dollar is huge. Multiple playable characters with their own stages in the main story as well as unique side stories, and a Challenge Mode offer countless hours of entertainment. 

This is a game that you can marathon for one entire weekend and then play for 15 minutes every so often and still enjoy just as much as the last time, every time. That said, I’m a fan of the series, so I wonder how much of that enjoyment translates to gamers not familiar with Fist of the North Star. The story mode’s brief narrative leaps from story arc to story arc and may be confusing for anyone not already familiar with the parent series. In that regard, this may not be a game for everybody. Anyone that enjoys mindless violence will love this whether they understand what’s going on or not. Fans of the series will be delighted with how surprisingly accurate the game is, and how fun it can be to assume the role of their favorite characters.Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage (PS3 and 360) earns an 8 out of 10. I completed Kenshiro’s story mode, started on Rei’s, and played as every unlockable player in Dream Mode before writing this review. Overall I think I clocked around 34 hours of total playtime, and I’ve still got a ways to before I’m completely done with the game.  I should note that I encountered a glitch on the 360 version that basically made 45 minutes of playtime disappear, but I don’t think it’s something that can be reproduced very easily, so I’m not too worried about other readers encountering it.

Foreign Ain't Borin': How to Become an Import Gamer

              Translating and localizing a game for release in English-speaking countries costs a lot of money. It is no surprise that many Japanese companies and American publishers often choose not to take a chance with Japanese games that are well-made but not guaranteed to sell well in other countries. Does this mean that we have to miss out on these games entirely? No way!The two biggest problems with import gaming are region lockouts and language barriers. Of course, the language barrier is not a problem with  be a legend soccer hack games that have little-to-no important text. Option screens in Japanese games, surprisingly, are usually in English. For story-driven games such as RPGs, a translation guide may be available. Some might find it too much of a hassle to read what the characters are saying on a computer screen or a piece of paper. 

 

It's certainly an inconvenience, but if the game is good enough, experiencing it this way is better than not experiencing it at all. It's important to not be intimidated by text that you can't understand. For example, sometimes a little extra experimentation is all you need to figure out what every option on a menu screen does.Most console developers put region protection on their systems so that games produced on one continent will not be compatible with consoles from others. Fortunately, there are some exceptions, and there are often easy and legal ways to get around this. 

 

 

Nintendo handheld systems along with Sony's PSP and Playstation 3 do not have any region protection on their games (although a PS3 will not be able to play PS2 or PS1 games from other regions). Some (but not all) Xbox 360 games do not have region protection; a helpful compatibility list can be found at Play-Asia.com.European gamers have plenty of reason to import from Japan and North America because older games produced for European consoles are often inferior to their American counterparts, and some games that were localized and released in America did not reach the rest of the English-speaking world. 

 

However, I have no experience with European consoles, and I do not know the best ways for a European gamer to go about importing, so I cannot give specific advice to gamers outside America in this guide. It might be a good idea to import foreign consoles if you're a European gamer, but make sure you have the proper plug adapters to use them.Region-protected consoles that are (in my opinion) worth the trouble for their imports include the Super Nintendo, the Sega Saturn, and the Playstation 2.

 

There are two ways to legally play imports on a Super Nintendo. Japanese Super Famicom games have no region protection on them, but they will not fit in a North American SNES. A way to overcome this is to manually cut out the tabs that block the cartridge. However, I do not recommend this method because it can be difficult without the right tools, and because it still will not allow you to play European games (there are a few worth playing, most notably Terranigma). I would recommend purchasing a Pro Action Replay 2 from eBay to serve as a converter. It's a bit pricey (it will cost at least $40), but you'll be able to play games from all regions and you won't have to modify your console. Note that going with the original Action Replay is NOT a good idea (it can delete save data for some games and it will not let you play European imports), and that it's okay to buy the European release of an Action Replay 2 because they are not region-protected. Some Japanese SNES games worth a look are Final Fantasy V, the three Fire Emblem installments, Kirby no KiraKira Kids, Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie, Sutte Hakkun, and Umihara Kawase.Unknown to many, the Sega Saturn was a success in Japan. 

 

 

This was thanks to a strong library of games and a series of popular commercials featuring "Segata Sanshiro" (a judo fighter who would beat people up and command them to play the Saturn). Because the Saturn was selling poorly in America and Europe, many of its quality games stayed in Japan. Fortunately, playing foreign games on an American Saturn is easy; all you need is an Action Replay (which should cost $25-$35). It should be noted that the Action Replay can store loads of save data, but because it is also a cheat device, they were unable to build a model with which you could save directly onto the cartridge. 

 

The console itself can hold some data, but if the battery is worn out, you might have to take an extra 30 seconds to transfer your save data onto the Action Replay at the end of every playing session because otherwise your data will be lost the next time you play. The Saturn's selection of import-only titles contains an impressive bunch of 2D fighting games and shoot-'em-ups. Because the Saturn was a powerhouse in the way of 2D games, many fighting games enjoyed their most faithful arcade-to-home conversions on the Saturn. Some examples are Street Fighter Alpha 3, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Darkstalkers 3, the King of Fighters series, and the Samurai Shodown series. In the way of shoot-'em-ups, the Saturn has loads to choose from. To name just a few, there's Soukyugurentai Otokuyo, Batsugun, Shienryu, Gunbird, the Parodius series, the Cotton series, and the highly sought after Radiant Silvergun. Perhaps the most notable Saturn imports among other genres are scenarios 2 and 3 of Shining Force III; Americans and Europeans only received scenario 1 and missed out on two-thirds of this epic game.Unfortunately, there is no safe and legal way to play imported games on an American Playstation 2. I would recommend simply purchasing a Japanese Playstation 2 console. 

 

If you're patient, you should be able to get one for well under $100 on eBay. It should be noted that the original Japanese Playstation 2 (I don't know about the slim model) uses a different power chord than the American model, so make sure you don't get the bare-bones console! Fortunately, memory cards and controllers are compatible with systems from all regions. PS1 & PS2 also have some quality shoot-'em-ups to offer, including Gradius Gaiden, Harmful Park, Espgaluda, Strikers 1945 I & II, and Twinkle Star Sprites: La Petite Princesse. On the RPG front, the most notable choice is Final Fantasy X International. The standout features in this version of Final Fantasy X are more optional boss fights and a brand new sphere grid which gives you more freedom to build your characters early in the game because they all start close together on the grid. Best of all, the game can be played entirely in English! Square Enix also released "international" versions of some of their other games (such as Final Fantasy X-2 and Kingdom Hearts), but these games only have English voice acting; the text is in Japanese. 

 

A few Japan-exclusive games in Namco's Tales series are available for PS2. Fan translation guides make these games playable. Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut, and Tales of Destiny 2 are all quite distinct in terms of gameplay, so one or more of them are worth a look even for casual fans of the series.Import gaming is satisfying because it often allows you to experience more of what your favorite series or genre has to offer. If you're a fan of a video game series that originated and Japan and has been around for several years or more, it's very likely that some part of it did not get released in America. There may be a spinoff, remake, special edition, or a whole installment in that series that you will never play unless you consider importing. If there's a good text-drive Japanese game out there without a good translation guide available, make it known all over the Internet and you could find somebody willing to start a translation project for it! It often takes extra effort to get the most out of import gaming, but the rewards can be well worth reaping.