to Hokuto no Ken - translated by us with Fist of the Warrior - is one of the most famous names for all those who have had the opportunity to fully enjoy the 80s. The epic came to light thanks to the minds of Tetsuo Hara e Buronson it has in fact met with enormous success both in the East and in the West, to the point of being subsequently transposed into an anime that is still nostalgically remembered by adults and young people all over the world. Such a success could only entice the gaming industry, which has in fact tried on several occasions to realize a work that could embody the spirit of paper production, with sometimes appreciable results, in other cases decidedly forgettable. Unfortunately, in the course of these last videogame generations no one has been able to bring to light a playful creature linked to the legitimate successor of the Divine School of Hokuto that was truly memorable, with just mediocre results that had left no little despair in the hearts of the fans. Precisely for this reason, it should therefore come as no surprise that the announcement of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise by SEGA has been seen by many as a sign that the downward spiral for the brand may have finally come to a halt. The idea of seeing a playful structure strongly inspired by the Yakuza brand for characteristics and dynamics has in fact been able to generate an anomalous wave full of hype that has invested many gamers, including those who have never had the opportunity to experience the adventures of our Ken. The promises have been high-sounding and now, after having been able to enjoy the entire offer extended by the team, we are finally ready to give you our final judgment on it.
When chaos reigns in the world, Hokuto appears
After a terrible nuclear confrontation that has brought the human race to the brink of extinction, the world has become a wasteland where survivors fight tooth and nail even just to be able to obtain the resources barely necessary for survival. Everywhere the law of the jungle is raging, where the strongest crush the weakest like gnats, cities are reduced to a heap of crumbling rubble and criminal gangs have gained power everywhere, while the few who still seek the path of peace see hope for a better future fade more and more. It is in this devastating context that the events narrated in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise come to life. Ken is in search of his beloved Julia, a girl torn from the arms of our hero during a kidnapping and, subsequently, given up for dead. According to some rumors, however, the woman may have been seen inside the City of Miracles, Eden, the place where dreams and desires can become reality.
Kenshiro's task will therefore be to go to that location to find out if what he has heard actually corresponds to reality. One of the undoubtedly most intriguing aspects of the SEGA-branded creature is to be traced back to its narrative, an unpublished story that has very little to do with what is seen in the paper work. The Japanese company has in fact considered it appropriate to give shape to an adventure capable of keeping both the most passionate fans and the latest arrivals on their toes, a decision that we can only fully support. Better still, what lived inside Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise has translated into a pleasant and intriguing story to follow from the beginning to the credits. The adventure manages to perfectly embody the spirit and mood of the original production, with unexpectedly positive results which, although without ever reaching the heights of other exponents of the genre, keep the attention of the player on duty adequately high. Various twists and well-defined characters, including new faces and old acquaintances more or less in the background, represent the ingredients of a commendable and quality experience that has been showing itself to us with appreciable strength.
You are already dead!
As mentioned above, playfully speaking Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is characterized by a structure strongly similar to what is seen with the Yakuza brand. What SEGA has created thus takes the form of an open world action-adventure with a combat-system that can be traced back to what one might expect from a scrolling fighting game. A significant slice of the experience will in fact see you intent on giving you a good reason with bad guys who are not very recommendable and only eager to send you to the other world. It only takes a few seconds to understand the playful mechanics at the base of the gameplay and soon you will find yourself throwing kicks and punches everywhere while taking, parrying and dodging that will go together with an almost unsettling naturalness. To this, then obviously we must add all the formidable moves that the Hokuto School has taught our Ken, dangerous attacks executable whenever we have stunned an opponent. In the aforementioned situations we will be catapulted into a small scripted scene with a distinctly cinematic touch in which, going to perform some QTE of variable difficulty, we will find ourselves performing choreographic moves that are fun to perform but also spectacular to see, especially for all fans. more avid who will recognize from the first glance each of the techniques that can be used in-game. Fortunately, the moves that we will be able to take advantage of have shown themselves to be quite rich in terms of variety and, although you will often find yourself having to repeat them in different scenarios, they always manage to offer the right rate of spectacle and violence that one would expect from a product linked to Ken the warrior.
By chaining combos in rapid sequence, we will then fill an indicator representing the constellation of the Big Dipper which, at the press of a button, will increase our strength for a short period of time and the ability we will have to take hits. During the adventure there will also be some decidedly challenging boss-fights during which it will be our task to give our best to be able to win, merciless clashes to be lived perpetually with the heart in the throat and the adrenaline to the stars. As usual for this videogame genre, we will then be able to level up as we earn experience points to unlock upgrades inserted within an intricate skill tree divided into four macro-groups - Skill Orb, Mind Orb, Body Orb and Star Orb - each of which will serve to give you specific improvements in defense, attack and more. During your game it will then be possible to freely roam the game world in order to undertake optional activities useful to enrich the play experience. Just like for Yakuza, by simply exploring the surrounding map we will occasionally come across situations that will require our intervention, regardless of whether we are talking about a child who has lost his family, a bartender oppressed by a criminal gang or, again, a man. seeking revenge. Although the differentiation of secondary tasks is not so marked - most of the time we will have to reach the place of interest and face some enemy -, the moderate frequency with which we come into contact with these situations makes them always pleasant to carry. complete.
Walking around the Land of the Demons
Within the city of Eden we will be able to entertain ourselves in numerous recreational tasks designed specifically to give an extra pinch of thickness to the adventure, with truly appreciable results. The different mini-games offered have in fact proved to be fun and sufficiently varied - you go from having to work in a bar to having to take care of a nightclub managing its staff, up to a real rhythm game in which to play the role of a doctor - and some choices introduced by the team seemed very apt, like the inclusion of an Arcade Shop where you can enjoy any videogame cabinet that we may have been lucky enough to find in the Land of Demons. At the same time, however, it is impossible not to admit that the clearly dramatic tones of the experience do not go well with a Kenshiro in a jacket and bow tie who takes advantage of his lethal fighting techniques to prepare the perfect cocktail. There is no mention of problems so serious as to affect the quality of the product, but there are still some annoyances capable of breaking the "magic" that the production has tried to recreate with so much effort. SEGA then took advantage of the opportunity offered by Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise to try to introduce an all-round guide system unfortunately turned out to be somewhat crude. After a few hours in-game, we will in fact be given the opportunity to drive a four-wheeled vehicle around what are the bare wastelands that form a substantial portion of the game world. In these phases we will be able to wander far and wide - paying attention to the consumption of petrol and possible enemy convoys - to go in search of useful objects to enhance our vehicle or, again, to identify small settlements potentially capable of offering some other secondary activity.
During your game, it will also be possible to face a series of races of varying difficulty to obtain rich prizes to be used to upgrade even more. The final result, however, did not turn out to be up to expectations and, either due to a rather imprecise control system or, again, for tedious missions that will require certain materials from us, we soon found ourselves identifying everything more as a nuisance and not as a useful addition to give even more character to the work. From a purely technical point of view, it is evident that the work does not shine for magnificence. The decision not to use the Dragon Engine exploited for programming Yakuza 6 has in fact led to the creation of a work that thrives on many ups and downs. The streets of the city of Eden are quite rich in detail and all the main characters have been made in great detail, both in terms of polygon count and in terms of animations, with Kenshiro playing the lion's share. In contrast, however, the wastelands appeared to us to be very poor, the play of light and shadow turned out to be just mediocre, many textures do not shine in quality and the animations of all the characters not relevant for the purposes of the narrative barely appear sufficient. The audio sector, on the other hand, proved to be of a good level, characterized by a good quality dubbing accompanied by a soundtrack that inevitably plays on many tracks capable of worthily accompanying the player.
