Released as a one meg cartridge for the Master System on 7/20/1986, this side scrolling fighter helped push Sega's hardware into more homes in Japan. A fighter before fighting games were in, this game let you perform punches, kicks and extreme jumps as you fought opponents who came at you from both sides. One of the coolest things about the game was that you had to defeat bosses using techniques from the original comic.

Yuji Naka, of Sonic Team fame, worked on the enemy portion of the original title's programming. Naka remembers having doubts as to whether people would be able to play the game given the requirements for defeating bosses. However, he feels that in the end he and his team were able to make a good product. Naka actually wonders what would've happened if he'd continued to make fighting games.

Naka insisted on one important thing for theSega Ages remake ofHokuto no Ken. He asked that the development team include the original version of the game, completely untouched. And he got just that.Hokuto no Ken is the first Sega Ages game to feature its original source material running in emulated form.

This is a good thing because the remake is, uhh, a bit different from the original. The remake plays like a fighting game that takes place in a large arena. Enemies come at you from all sides and you have to take them out using a few basic punch and kick moves. You can also use one of several special attacks, selectable by pressing the shoulder buttons on the controller. Defeat a certain number of enemies and a boss appears. Defeat the boss and you move on to the next stage.

Stage layouts and basic gameplay feel are completely different from the original making us wonder why this game is even called a remake. Two player support is, surprisingly, missing from the the remade game (although the Mark III emulated version allows for two players). You can't even execute a super jump by pressing down and then up. How did that get overlooked?

The typically bad3D Ages polygonal graphics, boring and repetitive gameplay and no resemblance to the original source material would make this the worst of the Sega Ages bunch so far, were it not for the inclusion of the original untouched title. We had fun playing the original, witnessing once again just how advanced Sega's 8-bit hardware really was at the time.

As for the remake, it's not so fun.