List of Fist of the North Star video games
The following is a list of video games based on the manga "Fist of the North Star". Since , many video games based on the "Hokuto no Ken" franchise have been released for the Japanese market, including coin-operated arcade games and computer software. The majority of these games were released only in Japan, with the exceptions of "Fist of the North Star" for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Taxan Soft in , "Fist of the North Star: 10 Big Brawls for the King of Universe" for the Game Boy by Electro Brain in , and the "" series by Koei Tecmo, which started in . The arcade games "Fighting Mania" by Konami and the "Fist of the North Star" fighting game by Sega, also received international distribution. Additionally, the Sega games "Black Belt" for the Master System and "Last Battle" for the Genesis, were originally released as "Hokuto no Ken" video games in Japan before they were stripped of the license and rebranded for the international market.
History of Eastern role-playing video games
In 2000, "Phantasy Star Online" on the Dreamcast introduced online gaming to consoles and was responsible for pushing console gamers "to dial up with the Dreamcast to play online and to experience a new style of play." It resulted in taking "consoles online" and defining "small-scale multiplayer RPGs," paving the way for larger-scale MMORPG efforts such as "Final Fantasy XI", setting the template for small-scale online RPGs such as Capcom's "Monster Hunter" series and some of the later "Dragon Quest" and "Final Fantasy" games, and giving rise to "an entire pantheon of multiplayer dungeon crawlers that continue to dominate the Japanese sales charts." More generally, "Phantasy Star Online" made "both online gaming and the concept of fee-based services a reality for consoles," paving the way for the online gaming services later provided by all three of the seventh-generation consoles. That same year, "Vagrant Story" introduced a pausable real-time battle system based on targeting individual body parts, using both melee and bow & arrow weapons; similar body-targeting battle systems were later used in Bethesda's "Fallout 3" (2008) and Nippon Ichi's "Last Rebellion" (2010). That year also saw the release of the PlayStation 2, which would become the best-selling game console of all time, due in large part to its large variety of Japanese RPGs (including franchises such as "Final Fantasy", "Grandia", and "Tales") that established its dominance over the RPG market.