Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: SEGA
Released: October 2, 2018
Completed: May 14, 2020
Rated: M for Mature
I went into Lost Paradise with high hopes. I'm a casual fan of the anime, but by no means an expert on it, and a hardcore fan of Ryu Ga Gotoko's Yakuza franchise. A game that married Yakuza's combat with a series known for its crazy level of violence seemed like a perfect match.
If you're unfamiliar with Fist of the North Star, the basic premise is something like an anime version of Mad Max with martial arts. Protagonist Kenshiro wanders the post-apocalyptic wastes, punching people until they literally explode, seeking vengeance on the man who left him for dead and reclaim his love from his rival. As one of the only practitioners of Hokuto Shinken, a fictional martial art that relies on hidden pressure points within the body, Kenshiro is one of the deadliest men in the world, but he makes a few friends along the way and becomes something of a hero to the citizens who've been terrorized by roving gangs.
Lost Paradise retells some of these events with an action-RPG twist. If you've played any of the recent Yakuza games - and if you have not, what the hell is wrong with you? - this will feel instantly familiar. Kenshiro can tackle quests from NPCs, play silly mini-games, upgrade his abilities, and of course, punch people until they explode. The over-the-top violence is here, and it's quite hysterical at first.
After the dozenth time you've seen each Hokuto Shinken move, however, you'll start to tire of seeing the same cutaway for each move. The problem is they break up the flow of combat with a short cinematic. You'll have to mash or properly time button presses to maximize damage, but the action stops briefly for Kenshiro to announce the name of the move. When you're surrounded by large mobs of enemies, which is basically every encounter, you'll be using techniques frequently, at which point the constant interruptions are far less entertaining.
By and large, the combat is the game's biggest strength. It's fast-paced and absurd, and Kenshiro has a bevy of moves at his disposal. The best moments, however, are the 1v1 boss battles, which play out like an arena style fighting game. These fights feel absolutely epic in nature, and will put your skills to the test. The bosses are no pushovers which makes defeating them feel exceptionally rewarding.
You can also supplement your skills with medallions that grant access to timed buffs, but to be honest, I rarely found them very useful. Some I never used at all, some seemed woefully ineffective, and others were just good enough to do a little chip damage or give you a moment to heal, but none of them felt like necessities.
Lost Paradise gets off to a slow start. The first four or five chapters are very constrained and linear, but the game opens up after that and feels much more like Yakuza. There are all kinds of side missions you can accept and activities to complete, and like Yakuza, many of them are quite comical. For example, you can early a little extra money as a bartender, which can open up some quests from patrons, but also sees Kenshiro use his Hokuto Shinken skills to mix drinks. Eventually you'll also get access to a vehicle you can use to travel the wastelands, and you can find or purchase upgrades for it as well. After you get past those initial few hours, the fun factor ramps up dramatically as you're allowed to explore more.
What holds the game back is the fact that many of the quests don't respect the player's time at all. Too often I was sent on a quests to one location to talk to someone or retrieve something, then I'd return to the original location only to be sent back again. There's just too much back and forth for very little payoff.
The other issue is how talkative everyone in the game is. Look, I'm all for a good narrative, and I can appreciate they tried to pay homage to the franchise's roots as a manga and anime series by giving it a decent story, but there is so much talking! In a game that's mainly combat-centric it just starts to drag on. It's like Fist of the North Star by way of Hideo Kojima with 20 minute long cutscenes between actual gameplay. Maybe they just felt that long or maybe they were, but in either case, the long stretches of story did nothing for the overall pacing.
One area it's hard to find fault in is the presentation. The graphics replicate the look of the animes very well with thick outlines on the characters and bold colors. It's not quite cel shaded, but it looks more like hand drawn art than 3D models. Audio fares similarly well. The English voice cast is solid, and there's just the right amount of camp in the delivery. Music is a mixture of butt rock and electronic dance that is serviceable and suits the game's silly tone well.
Control brings it all together. Using the Dragon engine means everything is responsive, snappy, and beautifully simple. Like SEGA's classic Virtua Fighter series, you can do a lot with only a few buttons. It's nearly identical to Yakuza's combat, which is a good thing, because it maintains that level of impressive animation and visual flair but doesn't require the player to input overly complex button sequences. Also like Yakuza, you'll unlock more techniques as you progress through the game and upgrade Kenshiro.
If you're a huge Fist of the North Star fan, this is likely the best video game version of the series. It feels very faithful, at least to me and my limited knowledge beyond the anime. Diehards will probably love stepping into Kenshiro's boots and letting fists fly while enemies explode into clouds of red goop. The combat is truly exciting, even though it's frequently broken up by the scripted Hokuto Shinken moves. How much you enjoy the rest of the game's activities or even its story will depend largely on how big of a fan you are.
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise was completed on a PlayStation 4 Pro with no cheats.
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