Hokuto no Ken 6 Gekitou Denshouken - Haou heno Michi (SNES)

 Though I think nowadays, when people think of Hokuto no Ken games on 8- and 16-bit consoles, they're more likely to think of the ones on Master System and Mega Drive, there was a series of them on Nintendo's consoles, too. And while the Nintendo games carried a sequel number across seven games (so yes, this is apparently a part of the same series of games as the Famicom beat em up Hokuto no Ken 2 that I reviewed long ago), they don't seem to have much else in common. Of course they started with beat em ups, then there were a few RPGs, and the final two, six and seven, were fighting games. 

 

Hokuto no Ken 6 represents an interesting and very narrow point in time in the genre's evolution, too. It's clear just by looking at it that the developers were familiar with Street Fighter II and its massive success (as I think everyone involved in videogames would have been at the time), and they were able to copy the general screen layout, and the large character sprites. But the mechanics and the feel of Street Fighter II were far beyond their capabilities at that time. The regular punches and kicks feel very stiff and clunky, and it's near-impossible to string multiple attacks together into anything feeling like a combo. Furthermore, instead of having motion-based special moves, the players have two meters beneath their health meter, and all specials are performed via the shoulder buttons, in conjunction with these meters.

 

The first meter, AP, works almost like the momentum meter in Idainaru Dragonball Densetsu: it goes up when you land hits, and it goes down when you take hits. When it's full, you can press the left shoulder button to perform a move so special, it's name will also appear onscreen if it lands. You'll recognise these as each character's signiature move from the comic/TV show. The other meter, TP, is less interesting: you hold the right shoulder button to fill it, and when it fills up, you can release to shoot a projectile attack. And that's pretty much the entirety of the game's special moves. (There are apparently even more powerful signatures if you manage to fill up the AP meter twice before using it, but I haven't been able to do that.)

 

The character line up is a little strange, too. There's Kenshiro and Rei, like you might expect, along with a bunch of villains from late in the series like Raoh, Souther, and so on. But what makes it weird is that there's a stage clearly meant to be Shin's throne room in Southern Cross, but instead of being occupied by Shin, it's the home stage for Heart! I guess he's kind of an iconic character, but he's also a comedy jobber who dies very early in the series! It's a shame I can't read the dialogue text that appears at the start of each story mode fight, as I'd love to know what happens in Heart's conversations with those god-like man-tyrants who make up most of the cast.

 

I actually did enjoy Hokuto no Ken 6. I can't recommend it, because it just doesn't really feel good to play. But somehow, I did get some joy from having these character awkwardly flail at each other. It's definitely helped by having such nicely drawn, detailed sprites, as well as other little details like Raoh being unable to crouch (because of course, the king of fists would never bend a knee). But it's very simplistic, very stiff, and it's on a console that has a ton of better fighting games (including several others that are based on anime and manga. Though Hokuto no Ken 7 isn't very good either, unfortunately). The best I can say is that it's a game that can be found very cheaply, and if you've got friends who can appreciate a good bad game, and who also love Hokuto no Ken, you might get a decent hour or so out of it.

Simple 1500 Series vol. 99 - The Kendo ~Ken no Hanamichi~ (Playstation)

 Something interesting about budget hames in particular is the way in whih the best of them manage to get a maximum amount of game with a minimum amount of resources, especially when they manage to do it without resorting to boring grinding or other timesink tactics. And The Kendo is a good example of that! Most of the characters in the game are represented by the same model with different coloured versions of the same textures. And yet, there are three single player stories, a survival mode, and a versus mode for one or two players.

 

The story mode is the most interesting part of the game, in my opinion. Everything's in Japanese, but it's easy enough to understand what's going on anyway. As mentioned, there are three stories, and they're all told with kendo matches interspersed between visual noval-style dialogue scenes using static character portraits and textboxes. The first story is about a teenage boy entering a kendo tournament, and along with winning the tournament, he also hopes to beat his bishounen rival to impress his girlfriend. 

 

Finishing that story lets you play the second, which stars a young policewoman, apparently investigating a kendo crime ring. So she corners suspects in a shady boiler room-style place and uses kendo skills to make them confess, eventually leading her to the mob's headquarters, and its leaders: a curly-moustached European knight and a sinister figure in a suit and hooded mask. The boiler room fights are done in a single hit, rather than the two-hit fights in the previous tournament story, so it's clear that the developers were doing what they could to add a little variety to what could have easily become a very repetitive game.

 

The final story mode has as its protagonist a man in his late forties, who seems to be working in some kind of industry that's a combination of pro-wrestling and kendo, complete with a sleazy McMahon-esque promoter and the involvement of organised crime. Unfortunately, this is where my Japanese illiteracy causes problems: it seems like in this story, you have to ensure that specific things happen in the match to progress, and I'm not sure exactly what those things are. I manage to eventually luck my way to the third stage, but it eventually became clear that I wasn't going to get any further.

 

The actual kendo action is pretty good. You can move forward and back, as well as into and out of the screen, and each of the four face buttons represents a different offensive or defensive move. You can even feint by pressing two buttons in quick succession, letting you stop one move midway and immediately perform a different one. The obvious comparison to make is to the SG-1000 game Champion Kendo, since it's both a game I love and as far as I know, the only other kendo game. The Kendo focusses on one-on-one matches that are decided by first-to-two-points, as opposed to Champion Kendo's five-on-five elimination matches. It's also a lot more fair than Champion Kendo, which, as much as I love it, does seem to rely a lot of randomness. There's definitely a lot more skill involved in this game. 

 

Whether you speak Japanese or not, this is a game I think is worth playing. Despite being tehnically a better game, it won't replace Champion Kendo in my regular rotation, but that's because I like that game's more arcadey score-chasing structure. But this game is a smartly-conceived and well-executed exercise in game design, and in getting the most out of limited resources. So I do recommend it, especially if you are interested in videogames as a creative medium.