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First Look At Fist Of The North Star: Ken’s Rage
Based on a well-established manga and anime property famous in Japan, Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage has already hit retail shelves overseas. Just announced for the States, this marks the first time Tecmo Koei has worked with the property – approached and selected by the license holder looking to take the franchise interactive.
An action/adventure title, the narrative follows that of the manga, unfolding after a nuclear war with main protagonist Ken searching for his fiancé. Legend mode equates to the campaign and allows the player to choose one of five characters. Ken’s campaign is significantly longer – topping out between 10 and 15 hours. The four remaining support characters each have their own five-hour campaign. Dream mode brings new content to the IP, featuring scenarios not featured in the anime or manga. This specific mode adds another three playable characters to the roster.
Sticking with their specialty, Koei has kept North Star ripe with action and frantic combat. Using the Warriors engine, Ken’s Rage features blood and gore aplenty. Sticking only to hand-to-hand combat, Ken decimates his foes, even causing some of them to explode into a bloody mess. After besting an enemy Ken collects orbs that can be spent on new moves. Each character will have 11 signature moves unique to their fighting style, four of which can be mapped to the d-pad.
While our demo only featured the aforementioned action elements, we were told that adventure scenarios will come into play through side quests and other excursions.
Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage is slated to release this fall for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
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