Fist of the North Star (NES video game)
"Fist of the North Star" is a single-plane beat-'em-up in which the player (as Kenshiro) proceeds through the game by walking from left to right, using his martial arts of Hokuto Shinken to defeat enemies. Similarly to "Kung-Fu Master", jumping is performed by pressing the d-pad upwards instead of having a dedicated button, leaving the A and B buttons solely for attacks. To enter a door, the player must press the d-pad right while holding A and B simultaneously, which is a requirement to proceed through certain stages. In addition to the regular enemies, the player must also defeat sub-bosses and bosses to proceed in the game. Each boss in the game has a weak point that will result in massive damage if the player strikes it with the proper attack before hitting any other part of the body, along with a greater bonus after the stage is cleared.
Holistic Design
It was founded in 1992 as Several Dudes Holistic Gaming. The company has developed many computer games in its history, including "Battles of Destiny", "Hammer of the Gods", "Final Liberation", "Machiavelli the Prince", "Merchant Prince I & II", "Emperor of the Fading Suns", and "Mall Tycoon". HDI also has a number of miniatures games in its inventory, including "Noble Armada", "Carnage" and "Combat Zone". Their most famous product is perhaps its role-playing game "Fading Suns", but they also have a number of other RPGs to their credit, such as "", and their Real-Life Roleplaying series covering Afghanistan, Colombia, Somalia, and the FBI. In 2011, the company entered into an arrangement with RedBrick to continue the creation and publication of Fading Suns as a tabletop RPG. The company also announced a tablet game called Noble Armada which has not yet been released. In 2014, the company made arrangements for FASA Games to continue the same arrangement, which has produced a new core rulebook with plans for reprinting old ones. Only one of the original partners is still with the company, Ken Lightner, though the other current partners bring a broad array of game design skills to the firm, most notably Bill Bridges, Andrew Greenberg and Chris Wiese.