Retro Games Beaten
Apr 28, 2024 1:15:17 GMT -5
Post by toei on Apr 28, 2024 1:15:17 GMT -5
I did it. Man, this was hard on the nerves. But I beat Hokuto no Ken: Shin Seikimatsu Kyuuseishu Densetsu (Genesis) legit, without using any save states. I did it without the patch to confirm something.
I'll be upfront about it: I like this game. But I know it's not very good. There's no way I would have beat it on real hardware, without having access to save states to practice. Although apparently there's a secret continue option when you die; by holding A+B+C and pressing start, you can restart from any of the 4 chapter you've reached. So if I'd known about the code, maybe. There are 10 bosses in the game, a large number of short levels filled with enemies you one shot who wear you down, and 4 big maze levels, 1 of which you can skip. I'm the weirdo who likes side-scrolling mazes. I like Revenge of Shinobi and The Legendary Axe's final levels. And so I kind of like those mazes, too, although 4 is too many. By the end I knew the way through each, so they weren't too bad. The good thing about them is they're the only place you can get your health refilled to the max. Other than that, beating bosses gives you a little bit of health back.
Games like this - Kung Fu, Ninja Warrior, etc. - seem really simplistic and mindless, even more so than real beat-'em-ups, until you realize that you can't get far until you get three things right: distance, timing, and prioritizing. They're actually very much skill-based. The key to most bosses is watching the feet; stay just out of reach from their attack, but close enough that you can move in and strike when they're vulnerable. Usually that's when they're hopping or walking forward in this game. They might have a few special attacks that you have to learn to avoid, but that's the most important thing. With the enemies, it's similar; they come at you from left, right, above, and even below in some cases, with patterns that get a little weirder and trickier later, and it's essential that you rapidly decide in which order you take them out and get the timing right.
I like Hokuto no Ken, and while the "2" part isn't as good story-wise (in the manga, anyway), it's still a really cool setting. I like the early Genesis aesthetic. Finishing bosses with that thousand punch attack Kenshiro does is very satisfying. The adventure, almost RPG elements are interesting. Each area presents different stages that you can travel between in different order, with NPCs in certain areas giving you permanent upgrades. What sucks is that this forces you to do some of the levels several times in one run. You can turn into a powered-up form as you beat enemies, which remains until the end of the chapter. So it feels more ambitious than other games like it. The director, Katsuhiro Hasegawa, later became Sega's main Game Gear man, directing, designing or producing a huge catalog of games, including Shinobi GG and Zenki, two platformers that also had bits of that structural ambition (kind of linear Metroidvania elements), though they turned out a lot better.
But it's also deeply unfair in its structure, giving you no extra lives, credits or passwords (without a code), the character walks slowly (you're still fighting all the time so whatever), the mazes can be confusing, and it's both tedious and frustrating at times. I understand how it's bad to most people. But I had fun, and I was very happy to beat it. Funny I beat this after PS2 Altered Beast, another game I know isn't really good but kind of grew fond of. I give this one a 6/10 for myself, and a 5/10 for almost anyone else.
I'll be upfront about it: I like this game. But I know it's not very good. There's no way I would have beat it on real hardware, without having access to save states to practice. Although apparently there's a secret continue option when you die; by holding A+B+C and pressing start, you can restart from any of the 4 chapter you've reached. So if I'd known about the code, maybe. There are 10 bosses in the game, a large number of short levels filled with enemies you one shot who wear you down, and 4 big maze levels, 1 of which you can skip. I'm the weirdo who likes side-scrolling mazes. I like Revenge of Shinobi and The Legendary Axe's final levels. And so I kind of like those mazes, too, although 4 is too many. By the end I knew the way through each, so they weren't too bad. The good thing about them is they're the only place you can get your health refilled to the max. Other than that, beating bosses gives you a little bit of health back.
Games like this - Kung Fu, Ninja Warrior, etc. - seem really simplistic and mindless, even more so than real beat-'em-ups, until you realize that you can't get far until you get three things right: distance, timing, and prioritizing. They're actually very much skill-based. The key to most bosses is watching the feet; stay just out of reach from their attack, but close enough that you can move in and strike when they're vulnerable. Usually that's when they're hopping or walking forward in this game. They might have a few special attacks that you have to learn to avoid, but that's the most important thing. With the enemies, it's similar; they come at you from left, right, above, and even below in some cases, with patterns that get a little weirder and trickier later, and it's essential that you rapidly decide in which order you take them out and get the timing right.
I like Hokuto no Ken, and while the "2" part isn't as good story-wise (in the manga, anyway), it's still a really cool setting. I like the early Genesis aesthetic. Finishing bosses with that thousand punch attack Kenshiro does is very satisfying. The adventure, almost RPG elements are interesting. Each area presents different stages that you can travel between in different order, with NPCs in certain areas giving you permanent upgrades. What sucks is that this forces you to do some of the levels several times in one run. You can turn into a powered-up form as you beat enemies, which remains until the end of the chapter. So it feels more ambitious than other games like it. The director, Katsuhiro Hasegawa, later became Sega's main Game Gear man, directing, designing or producing a huge catalog of games, including Shinobi GG and Zenki, two platformers that also had bits of that structural ambition (kind of linear Metroidvania elements), though they turned out a lot better.
But it's also deeply unfair in its structure, giving you no extra lives, credits or passwords (without a code), the character walks slowly (you're still fighting all the time so whatever), the mazes can be confusing, and it's both tedious and frustrating at times. I understand how it's bad to most people. But I had fun, and I was very happy to beat it. Funny I beat this after PS2 Altered Beast, another game I know isn't really good but kind of grew fond of. I give this one a 6/10 for myself, and a 5/10 for almost anyone else.