I've never actually watched Fist of the North Star. From what I understand, it's an anime with a main character who can make people explode by punching them. It's just as awesome as it sounds, but I really doubt you can translate the extreme exploding action into a Game Boy game. And, of course, they didn't.

As for the graphics, they're definitely not great. The backgrounds are dull, and very lacking in detail, while the characters don't have very much detail either and only have about two or three frames for every action they can perform. This is one of those times where I can say that the title screen is the best looking part of the game, because it's the only thing that looks like anyone with talent worked on it.

The music in the game ranges from generic stuff that you'll forget about as soon as you stop playing the game to shrill, grating noises that make you wish your Game Boy didn't have speakers. The sound effects are barely even there, and are of similar quality to the music. So, in other words, the presentation doesn't even come close to capturing the awesomeness of the original show.

The storyline is basically non-existent. Essentially, it only exists in the manual and only exists there to give an excuse for each of these characters to fight each other. Basically, it details how each of these characters is trying to rule the world, so they fight each other to find out who is the most powerful, and thus most fit to rule. I haven't really watched the original anime that this game was based off of, but I'm going to guess that's not even close to the plotline that it had.

And now, we get to the major reason this game gets a 0.1:The gameplay. Now, this is a fighting game that came before Street Fighter 2 revolutionized the fighting game genre and set new standards for future games in the genre, but that's still no excuse for why this game's fighting mechanics are so broken. Essentially, trying to actually fight your enemies is futile because combos are impossible, there's no staggering from attacks whatsoever, and the hit detection is iffy at best. Of course, the enemy isn't hampered by the poor hit detection, so it has a significant advantage on you.

But there's one thing you can do to even the odds...spam projectiles. Yes, this is a FIGHTING GAME where the most effective strategy is spamming projectiles! And the best part is that the enemy AI can't dodge them at all and will get hit almost every time! There's literally no point in trying any other strategy against the AI, because of the aforementioned terrible fighting mechanics. All you have to do is pick a character with projectiles and keep firing them while moving every now and then to dodge attacks. Even matches against other players will devolve into a projectile-spam fest. This horrible game design sucks away all of the fun the game may have had for even the most hardcore fighting game enthusiasts.

Speaking of characters, let's talk about the character selection. Again, I don't expect something on the same level as Street Fighter 2, but there was literally no effort put into this section. For the most part, the characters only have minor differences between them. Different characters have slightly different projectiles, Souther can't kick, etc. At the same time, the characters are also somewhat unbalanced. Two of the characters that you can play as, Heart and Uygur, can't jump or use any projectiles. This makes them extremely easy for any other character to defeat, since they can simply keep jumping over the poor Heart and Uygur while pelting them with projectiles. You would think that basic playtesting would expose the fact that these characters are totally useless, but that's when you use logic, which obviously wasn't something that was in use by the designers of this game.

The game tries to be deep with a password system and a leveling system. Unfortunately, neither of these systems are of any use. The leveling system is totally superficial, giving only minor, nearly useless increases in stats. At the same time, the passwords are only useful for saving your character's level and experience gained. I didn't feel any stronger at Level 3 than I did at Level 1. And in a game where experience is gained so infrequently, you need to make the levels actually feel like they do something. And, to be honest, a leveling system in a fighting game is a horrible idea. It sounds good on paper, but I've never seen it with an execution that wasn't totally awful.

Now, you might be wondering why I titled this review "Fist of the Scrub Star." The reason for this is simple and totally understandable if you know what the term "Scrub" means in the fighting game community. Essentially, a scrub is a player who utilizes tactics that are easily to counter or repetitive, and ends up whining about unfair play whenever they are beaten by someone who is more skilled than they are. But in this game, repetitive tactics are encouraged. Since you can't perform elaborate combos and your attacks will pass right through enemies at the most inopportune of times, you will be forced to resort to repeatedly throwing projectiles until the AI opponent is defeated. So, to put it into the terms of the fighting game community, the game is literally made for scrubs.

So, I'm sure you can see why this game deserves a 0.1. The presentation is lackluster, yet it is the best thing to be found in the entire game. The hit detection is lousy at best, the characters have barely any difference between them, and the game mechanics are some of the worst that I've ever seen in any fighting game ever. It literally requires zero strategy besides repeatedly throwing projectiles at your enemies, and the lousy hit detection and impossibility of combos will thwart any other strategy you attempt.

You'd think it wouldn't be this hard to make a game out of a guy who makes people explode by punching them. Just make a game based on that! You'd have to seriously screw up for that not to be a good game! Even if it doesn't follow the series, at least it'd be fun to play!

Final Rating: S- (The S stands for Scrub)

I will admit that this franchise is horrible in the game department but in the manga, anime, and movie department it is amazing so don't let a bad stop you from watching or reading Fist of the North Star :3