Fist of the North Star (NES video game)
The U.S. version was shown at the 1988 Summer Consumer Electronic Show under the title "Ken the Great Bear Fist", which is the localized title used by Toei's international sales department. The title was changed to "Fist of the North Star" for its release in order to tie in with Viz's English adaptation of the manga. The cover artwork for the U.S. version depicts Kenshiro sparring with Toki, who doesn't appear in the game and never actually appeared in the "Hokuto no Ken 2" anime series outside flashbacks (as the character was already deceased by that point of the storyline). The NES version has some slight differences from its Famicom counterpart, which cuts the appearances of side characters at the end of certain stages (such as Bat and Rin at the end of the first stage), as well as the kanji that appear at the top of the screen when Kenshiro defeats a boss after striking its weak point at the start of the battle.
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.