Fist of the North Star (NES video game)
Fist of the North Star is a side-scrolling action video game produced by Toei Animation and developed by Shouei System for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was first released in Japan under the title on April 17, 1987, being the second "Hokuto no Ken" video game released for the Family Computer (Famicom) by the anime production company (which briefly entered the video game publishing business after their success with the original "Hokuto no Ken" game for the Famicom in 1986), while also serving as a tie-in to the "Hokuto no Ken 2" anime series which began airing on Fuji TV a few weeks earlier. Taxan published the localized NES version on April 1989, making it one of the earliest "Fist of the North Star" products released in the U.S. alongside Viz Communications' English adaptation of the manga.
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.