The Hokuto no Ken Famicom games

Eight cartridges from the anime’s own studio, and the only Hokuto games most of the world ever saw.

Between 1986 and 1993 the Famicom and its successor hosted the center of Hokuto gaming, published not by a game company but by Toei Animation, the studio behind the television series, and developed largely by Shouei System. The first two are side-scrolling action; the third reinvented the series as an RPG that walks the manga from its beginning to the Land of Asura; the fourth continued as an RPG with an original story.

One cartridge crossed the Pacific intact. The second Famicom game reached North America in April 1989 on the NES as simply Fist of the North Star, published by Taxan, advertised inside Viz’s English manga comics, and shown at the 1988 Summer CES under Toei’s proposed English title for the whole franchise, Ken the Great Bear Fist. The Game Boy game followed in 1991 from Electro Brain. Everything else stayed home.

FAMICOM

Toei Animation · 1986 to 1991

Hokuto no Ken · August 10, 1986

Side-scrolling action in five stages, bossed by Mr. Heart, Shin, Jagi, Souther and Raoh: the whole first era in one cartridge, released while the anime’s first series still aired.

Hokuto no Ken 2 · April 17, 1987

A tie-in to the Hokuto no Ken 2 anime’s Gento arc, eight stages, released days after the new series’ fifth episode. This is the cartridge Taxan localized for the NES in 1989 as Fist of the North Star, the earliest Hokuto tie-in product sold outside Japan.

Hokuto no Ken 3 · October 19, 1989

The turn to RPG: Shin Seiki Sōzō Seiken Retsuden adapts the manga from its opening through the Asura arc, with a traveling party of Kenshiro, Bat and Lin.

Hokuto no Ken 4 · March 29, 1991

Shichisei Hakenden, a second RPG with an original storyline, the Famicom’s last Hokuto game and the last of the Toei run on the original hardware.

GAME BOY AND SUPER FAMICOM

The run continues

10 Big Brawls for the King of the Universe · Game Boy · 1989

A one-on-one fighting game of ten duels, released in Japan on December 22, 1989 and in North America in 1991 by Electro Brain with the license intact, the second and last of the era’s intact exports.

Hokuto no Ken 5 · Super Famicom · July 10, 1992

Tenma Ryūsei Den: Ai Zesshō. The series moves to the new hardware as a versus fighting game.

Hokuto no Ken 6 · Super Famicom · November 20, 1992

Gekitō Denshōken: Haō e no Michi, a second fighting game within five months of the fifth.

Hokuto no Ken 7 · Super Famicom · December 24, 1993

Seiken Retsuden: Denshōsha e no Michi closes the numbered run by returning to the RPG form of the third and fourth games, the story of the succession itself.

JAPAN AND THE WEST

The pattern of the whole history

Two of eight

Only the second Famicom game and the Game Boy game were exported with their license, names and art intact. Sega’s two games traveled disguised; the other five Nintendo games never left Japan at all.

Why Toei published games

The anime studio briefly entered game publishing on the strength of its own first Famicom title, a reminder that in 1986 the line between an anime company and a game company was drawn in pencil.

The Hokuto no Ken Famicom games

FAMICOM

GAME BOY AND SUPER FAMICOM

JAPAN AND THE WEST

THE FIRST WORD