Years ago, I discovered two awesome series by chance while searching for PS3 demos: Yakuza and Fist of the North Star. Both feature awesome combat, great characters and their own quirky charms, but never did I imagine they'd fuse into a single game.
Some time later, Yakuza developers Ryu ga Gotoku Studio announced a game based on Hokuto no Ken; the fittingly named Hokuto ga Gotoku, later released in the west as Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise. Essentially, it's a FotNS game made using the same engine as the Yakuza games. But this is much more than a simple reskin.
Plot wise, Lost Paradise is an alternate telling of the events in the manga. The story is original but includes familiar characters and scenes while introducing new characters and concepts that don't seem out of place in the post apocalyptic wasteland of FotNS.
After the conclusion of the Shin arc at the start of the game, powerful martial artist Kenshiro stumbles upon a lively walled city named Eden on his quest to find his beloved Yuria, complete with electricity and all the fresh food and water you could ask for in a barren, war-torn desert. But all is not as it seems in Eden, and Ken faces off against old and new threats in his journey for Yuria. The story starts off slow, but really draws the player in after a few chapters, after revealing some key characters plot twists you probably won't see coming. Those unfamiliar with the source material aren't missing out on much, as backstories are explained via dialogue or flashbacks.
Like Yakuza, there's open world with a myriad of minigames, although the titular Eden is much considerably smaller than Tokyo's Kamurocho. There's also the option to venture out into the wasteland in a customisable buggy to take part in races, scavenge for resources and visit settlements outside of Eden, similar to the recent Mad Max game. Makes sense, seeing as the original Mad Max movie was a source of inspiration for FotNS. Driving is, however, more clunky than it is in most games this generation, but at least it doesn't make up a massive part of the game.
Combat is a strong point of Lost Paradise. Kenshiro feels faster than he did in the Ken's Rage games and even more destructive as he uses pressure points to explode his enemies. Lost Paradise uses the same engine as Yakuzas 5 through Kiwami, so imagine the combat system from there but more violent and arcadey. There's a number of over the top secret techniques Ken can use to make his foes already dead, all of which fill up the Seven Star meter. When this is full, Ken can temporarily enter a rage mode similar to the anime, where his jacket rips off his body, he deals extra damage and has access to more moves than usual. It truly feels like you're harnessing the power of Hokuto Shinken, and there's nothing more satisfying than delivering the ol' Omae wa mō shindeiru after a beatdown. However I've encountered a few seconds of freezing after activating a secret technique, which sadly breaks up the flow and immersion of combat.
Boss fights are, in a word, spectacular. The hype kicks in as soon as the versus screen appears while Ken squares off with an evenly matched foe. Combat is generally more difficult than Yakuza and rightly so, especially against those strong enough to command their own armies in a world ruled by strength. Powerful enemies are defeated in epic QTE scenes that are simply amazing to watch and a gratifying conclusion to keeping up with their onslaught.
Some of the minigames have been carried over from Yakuza but with an added twist. For example, the baseball has been replaced with smacking biker thugs as far as you can with a girder, cabaret club managing is now faster and more mission based, and karaoke has Ken moonlighting sans doctor, using using Hokuto Shinken to cure Eden's residents of various ailments while demolishing the bandits that invade the clinic, all in time with various music tracks. There's also an arcade where Ken can play classic Sega games he unearths in the desert, such as Space Harrier, Super Hang-On and, weirdly enough, the 1986 Fist of the North Star game for the Sega Master System. All of these are fun diversions between missions and a good source of XP and money.
The western release features the option to choose from English or Japanese dialogue. While the English dub is perfectly acceptable, the Japanese version features voice actors from the Yakuza series that drawn some interesting parallels between the characters they portray. There's the badass and stoic protagonist (Kenshiro/Kiryu), his love interest (Yuria/Kaoru), the kindhearted and strong-willed girl that follows him around (Lin/Haruka), his former friend that betrayed him (Shin/Nishiki), his mentor and figurative older brother (Toki/Kashiwagi), the unpredictable and facially disfigured rival (Jagi/Majima), the initially distrusting but helpful ally (Jagre/Yuya), the entitled villain with a secret (Thouzer/Morinaga), and the mighty, ambitious arch enemy (Raoh/Ryuji), plus more.
Lost Paradise is as much a Yakuza game as it is a Fist of the North Star game. While I wouldn't say it's the best Yakuza game, it's a fresh take on the series' formula and definitely the best game adaptation of Fist of the North Star, as well as a great entry point for anyone interested in the series and a must play for fans that have already seen the anime or read the manga and own a PS4.
