Hokuto no Ken (Sega Mark III) (北斗の拳)

Gameplay

The game strings together side-scrolling levels where Kenshiro eliminates numerous enemies with punches and kicks, leading up to a final duel against the stage boss. These boss fights switch to a fixed screen and adopt a format close to a fighting game, and you often need to know the right technique to defeat them. Defeating a boss triggers a finishing animation featuring Hokuto Shinken combos. As early as the first level, the fight against Shin concludes with a demonstration of the Hokuto Hyakuretsuken. The game also features cheat codes typical of the era, some of which made Kenshiro invincible.

Of note

Programmed by Yuji Naka, the future creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, this title is often cited as the best video game adaptation of Hokuto no Ken of that generation, and its popularity even drove players to buy a Mark III just for it. Rei appears on the box art but does not appear in the game.

Due to the lack of a Hokuto no Ken license outside Japan, Sega re-released the game in the West under the title Black Belt. The hero becomes a karate fighter in a kimono named Riki, his kidnapped girlfriend is called Kyoko, the final rival Wang, and all the backgrounds as well as some of the enemies were redesigned in a kung-fu and ninja movie style, without any reference to the manga.

The game saw two re-releases in Japan: a 3D remake for PlayStation 2 in 2004 (Sega Ages 2500 collection, with Kamiya Akira providing the voice acting and the original Mark III version included), followed by a release on the Wii Virtual Console in 2008. The original version is also playable as a bonus in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise.