Since its publication in 1983, Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's Fist of the North Star (Fist of the North Star) has a large number of fans, and its apocalyptic composition that makes heads pop out is perfection For video game expressions.
The first Fist of the North Star game came out in 1986 from Enix, and Sega's relationship with the series began later that year with the Mark III home console (this version was later released in the West). Black belt).
Sega's second attempt at this series was in 1989. Fist of the North Star: New Legend of the End of the Century Savior. This side-scrolling action title, based on the manga's Teito and Asura story arcs, boasted impressively large sprites for its time, and Sega immediately rebranded it as a Western version under the title Last Battle. Localized for release (oddly, this localization was later ported to home computers by Elite Systems).
Today, even the most ardent fans of Fist of the North Star: New End of the Century Strongest Legend probably have a love-hate relationship with the game – including your own creator. Its visuals are still decent and the music is great. Also, when Kenshiro is fully powered up, Really nice.
The problem is that the game feels unbalanced, with certain bosses killing you within seconds. Kenshiro's movements are also known to be slow and stiff, and the overall gameplay is quite repetitive.
So when The Last Battle (which is fairly faithful to the Japanese version, although the signature exploding heads are removed, all character names have been changed, and some enemy colors have been changed), No wonder it was panned by Western critics and disappeared. It goes down in history as one of his worst games on Sega's 16-bit console (British publication Mega is famous) ranked second worst The best Mega Drive game of all time, it received a 32% review score from rival magazine MegaTech).
Thankfully, a fan named Hernani S. Costa has taken it upon himself to “restore” this much maligned cult classic. A new patch has been released that is described as a “major overhaul of the Japanese original.” [a] Translated the original Japanese Fist of the North Star for Mega Drive to restore the blood and original colors that were changed in the localization of the final battle. ”
Costa mentions the original Western localization, which started parallel to Genesis in North America in 1989 and in Europe the following year, and that it made little sense, so the text here “better describes the events of the anime.” It says it has been changed to reflect this. The text now “fills in details that cannot be conveyed in the game, as the original text didn't explain much and had some inconsistencies with the anime.”
Cleaning up the story is the only way this new patch will fix the mistakes made in Last Battle. Here is a list of other improvements:
- Stage positions have been rearranged so that in-game events follow those in the anime.
- Fixed a bug where mouth movements were not displayed in the bleeding Falco, Ryu, and Kayo conversation character images at the end.
- After the rebound logic has been fixed, it will levitate jumped enemies to send them back to the floor.
- Boss health and damage amount have been rebalanced.
- My walking speed has increased.
- Repulsion distance has been shortened.
- Changed the sound effects of some actions.
- The start position of screen scrolling has been changed to a more central position.
- Fixed backward arrowheads in dungeons.
- Some map stage images have been changed to reflect changes in stage layout. Enemy positions have been changed in some stages.
“A few other changes are still possible, but the patch is already in a playable state,” Costa added. “Overall, this should somehow make the 'bad' original game a more enjoyable experience.”
Longtime fans of the game seem to agree. A review left on ROM Hacking.com says:
I remember buying “Last Battle'' when it was released. It looked amazing to my 12 year old eyes. What ended up being a frustratingly difficult and slightly slow game. I'm happy to report that the improvements and translations made to Fist of the North Star have eliminated the buyer's remorse I felt at the time.
