Review for Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise. Game for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 02/10/2018
In the 80s a manga destined to become a legend was born: Hokuto no Ken, arrived as Ken the Warrior, appeared for the first time in the pages of Shonen Jump, bringing to vogue the story of the martial arts master Kenshiro and his search for lost love Yuria. After more than thirty years from its publication, the talented Ryu ga Gotoku Studio has decided to participate in the brand's rebirth project (which already includes TV series and films) by creating a video game on the legend of Hokuto. Thus was born Fist of The Nort Star: Lost Paradise, an exclusive PlayStation 4 that reinterprets the manga by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara in a different light, designing it as if it were a spin-off of the Yakuza series.
The result is surprisingly faithful to the spirit of the original, while exploiting a different script and narrative structure. In general, the game is of the highest quality, with a winning mix of respect for the original work and personal ideas of the studio that wanted to include his own in the formula. To immediately make the situation clear, F.ist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is probably the best tie-in ever made for both Ken's brand, both for the anime scene in general, this thanks to the excellent design choices and the courage to develop a title not relegated to the usual genres of Japanese tie-ins (ie musou or fighting).
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is placed in a different timeline than the manga, but starting from the same basis. Kenshiro travels through the apocalyptic lands in search of his beloved Yuria, until he meets Shin, the man who defeated him by taking her woman by force. The game starts from this iconic battle, rendered very faithfully to the paper counterpart, and then takes its own path and focuses on the city of Eden, where Yuria seems to have taken refuge. During the events of Lost Paradise, many characters from the series will appear, such as Kenshiro's brothers, Rei, Airi, etc. The integration of these figures is mostly not accidental, but well integrated with the original screenplay of the work. The characters faithfully maintain their characters and objectives, but the different context leads them to interact in a different way, without however distorting them. The only ones left a bit on the sidelines are the two young companions of Kenshiro, who in Lost Paradise are relegated to simple NPCs who are only asked to access minigames and some small substory.
That said, the script isn't exactly the title's strong point. Overall it's nice and has interesting passages, but pacing isn't the best, with some extremely slow or even avoidable chapters. The original characters added in Lost Paradise perform well, but are not particularly memorable, although one in particular tries in every way to remember the character of Tsuyoshi Nagumo, excellent shoulder for Kiryu in Yakuza 6. To determine the weakness of the script is also a problem due to the title structure: where Yakuza hides uninspired gameplay sections behind excellent direction and a compelling storyline, Lost Paradise fails to achieve the same result.
The videos are more than good, with an excellent Japanese dubbing (compared to a bad English dubbing), but they are too rare until chapter 7.
However, there is a very important sector in which we found Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise better than Yakuza: the combat system. Without the constraints given by the suspension of disbelief due to the realistic setting of Yakuza, Ryu ga Gotoku Studio was able to give his best, perfectly rendering the strength and cruelty of Hokuto's style. The gameplay of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is a boon to all those kids who grew up with Kenshiro, dreaming of being able to defeat hordes of enemies with the Hokuto Shinken. Battles against multiple enemies are particularly useful from this combat system: in the famous "Long Fight" we will have dozens of opponents to exterminate, giving the feeling of extraordinary power of Ken, which contrasts well against the major boss fights who will instead be able to give a thread. to twist. Speaking of boss fights, the title features some exceptional bosses, especially from the seventh chapter. To accompany these battles we will have crazy choreographies, which wink at anime and manga fans, citing movements or entire tables.
In addition to the gameplay, the game world is also promoted with good marks, great for atmosphere thanks to the graphic style and design and full of things to do. Some minigames are more layered and developed than the Yakuza, with the best "Colosseum" ever made by the studio, a welcome racing mode (with a car that can also be used in exploration) and special goodies in "recycled" video games, which have been adapted admirably to Kenshiro's post-apocalyptic world. Instead, the power up and level up system can be improved, which consists of a fairly retrograde spherography and very limited in its possibilities.
The technical sector of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is probably his biggest Achilles heel. The title does not use the Dragon Engine, since the team working on the game was inexperienced with the new graphics engine, in favor of an older engine but at the same time more stable, at least at the time of the Japanese release of the game. The result is fluctuating. Although the graphic style has been chosen and created with great care, technically the game is not excellent. Many textures are low resolution and it is easily noticeable in some details even of the protagonist, such as the scars he wears on his chest. The variety of NPCs is not vast, so much so that shameless duplicates can be encountered very easily, unlike perhaps what happens in Yakuza where the large number of NPCs on the screen helped to deceive the eye. Even the animations, more than anything else regarding the aforementioned npc, are not the best, with some that are almost ridiculous to see. The performance of the title, on the other hand, is good, with a stable framerate on PlayStation 4 Pro and not instant loads but never particularly verbose. The soundtrack is good, with suitable and sometimes epic tracks also for secondary activities such as the battles at the Colosseum.
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is a great title, before an excellent tie-in. It takes the characters and fights from the original work and integrates them into a Yakuza-style action game, which proved to be a good choice. A technical sector that is not excellent and a script not at the level of the previous titles of the studio limit its value for a non-fan of the Ken series, but the title remains good even for those who do not know the work of Tetsuo Hara. For fans, however, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is a must purchase, a love letter to Ken the Warrior.
► Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is an Action-Adventure type game developed by Ryu ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 02/10/2018
