Average game is average, news at 11. It’s a C game, it’s a 65-73% game on the % scale. Was it fun to play? Absolutely. Was it a bit repetitive? For sure. Is there a lot of replay? Hell yes. This game truly appeals to the fan and that’s the draw. I’ve waited for a game like this for a very long time and it’s made me want to re-watch Fist of the North Star
I beat the single player mode and the game initially asks you what difficulty you want to play and recommends to play on easy mode to experience the story and worry about completionist stuff later. I conceeded because had I not done as so, I wouldn’t have unlocked the things I unlocked for play in co-op mode. Co-op mode also had to be unlocked. Co-op mode was also one of the major reasons I picked up this game. This game was a feat, as in it took 14.5 hrs to complete. There is a trophy/achievement for logging 30 hrs of gameplay, totally doable. 14 Chapters in total, it was long and that was clearing it with one character in single player mode. Other characters have shorter campaigns according to the timeline, but Kenshiro is the main storyline and everything revolves around him, so you get 14. The QTE boss finishers, I’ve never been a fan of QTE really, but it does add a little bit of flavor to defeating the boss. It’s like in Street Fighter and you finish a guy off with a super move or something. For some they’ll want to perfect the chapters which means going around and getting the 7 stars with a death star bonus. Which then initiates a grueling 8×8 QTE sequence. I also found out later, getting 7 stars + the death star means the boss is in Berserk mode and if you mess up in the QTE, he regains half his health. This is what happened to me. I failed twice and almost died, but pulled through.
There isn’t much else to talk about the game, the Dynasty Warriors musou mode is the Co-op play which I haven’t touched yet. The single player plays somewhat like it, but doesn’t in the same vein and it’s there that makes this game feel different comparatively. It’s also got me thinking in the right hands this game could’ve been a crazy action/adventure. Like super crazy. Again that’s my vision, and not someone else’s. I will talk about the final boss though, which I thought was broken. I battled that boss for an hour. I had not died at all up until this point, but I died several times here having to redo it over and over. By the 13th chapter you unlock a special ability which I feigned off as not needing, but come the final boss fight it pays to have it equipped. I did not have equipped and thus payed dearly on my first encounter. The final boss also basically had 4 forms and normally you get at least one health heal up in a boss fight. You do not get no such heal ups in the final boss fight which is easily the toughest fight of the game. Before you even reach the final boss you have to fight 6 commanders and a bunch of goons consecutively. Again it’s not an easily hill to climb to use that analogy again, but it’s doable based on your play style. Anyway after realizing I made an error by not equipping said special ability I quit the game to adjust my character. Then I had to replay the final level over again and get to the final boss again, which I did not like. From there I spent the next 45min trying to beat him. In the end I adjusted my play style and only had the special ability as an insurance policy and never used it all. I relied on skill more so and dodged every special attack from the boss I could and countered and stayed aggressive. It was challenging and at the end of final QTE to finish the boss, I fist pumped and said “YES!” in relief.
The final boss had this one move which would basically take off 60% of your life. You get hit by that twice, you’re dead. The special ability I was talking about is an invincible mode. You cannot touch the final boss at all for about 30s and he glows and fires his deadly attack consecutively over and over and over. If you can dodge it about 4 or 5 times you’ve survived. But beware he’ll throw one more deadly attack for good measure and this is what usually caught me. Problem with fighting him was it became trial and error as the boss had 4 forms and I had to gauge things on where my life should be at and what to expect. In the end it probably took like 5 min to beat the boss after it was all said and done. He’s pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. It also had to do with what I unlocked on my skill chart. I took this one route and by the end of my play-through I had my special ability bar almost maxed out, I had 7 out of 8 possible upgrades. I think the route I took was the correct one, but again it’s based on play style. I focused on the defensive end, while others may have focused on the offensive end. It’s a curious thing. But I was able to do things methodically. I did suffer as in my attacks were not as strong and my health virtually received no upgrades whatsoever. Anyway that special ability which made the boss invincible, the only way to counter it besides dodging it was to activate your own invincible mode which you unlocked in the previous chapter. In the end like I said, I relied on skill to dodge and only had it as insurance. One other complaint was the camera, it’s fixed nature and slowness is a serious detriment when you play and you can often get hit from the blindside. Where as your blindside is you can’t see the attack coming at all. I have other complaints with hit detection, combo sequence, animation movements which lock you in a move set, timing, canceling move sets and slowness of countering afterward. In the end the game isn’t as responsive as I would like, but you learn, you get balanced within the game’s structure and you play it. After beating the game I just don’t know where I sit right now with it, I’m at the point where I could go the completionist route. I honestly think getting all the achievement/trophies is something I could do. I could beat the game with other characters but at the very least I want to play coop mode at least once and beat it there and maybe max out my Kenshiro character on his skill chart. The skill chart literally is the FFX sphere grid as well.
So I would recommend Fist of the North Star? Not really, but if you’re a fan it will appeal to you. In the end I killed 3,500+ people and of those people I made 2,500+ explode.
