Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is an action-adventure game. It's a crossover between the anime, Fist of the North Star, and the beat 'em up Yakuza video game series.
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Pros
Pro Brutal and entertaining brawler combat
The beat 'em up fights in the game are brutal, with impressive up-close-and-personal cinematics that make the fights a lot of fun. Each punch and kick you throw out builds up a certain gauge for you to pull off special moves, and you can use items in your environment as weapons against your opponents in punishing ways. Every time you land a hit, you build up a special gauge. You can then use special moves against the packs of punks and thugs in your way, showing off neat cinematics straight out of an action movie. The combat does a great job at making you feel powerful and in control of things at all times.
Pro Tons of entertaining side content
There's so much to do in between story missions, with plenty of quality and polish to keep you entertained for hours. All of the mini-games and side quests almost have a life of their own with plenty of variety and detail. There are dozens of side quests that flesh out the world and characters a lot more, and there are a bunch of other mini-games, like gambling, making drinks as a bartender with hilariously over-the-top animations, and managing a cabaret club to make a bunch of money. It's hard to get bored with the sheer volume of stuff to do.
Pro Great cross-over between Fist of the North Star and Yakuza
This is an excellent mashup of the FotNS anime and the Yakuza brawler game series. The main protagonist, Kaneshiro, is basically Kiryu Kazuma from Yakuza in all but name, with the same voice actor and the same personality from the long-running series. The power fantasy beat 'em up combat, the wacky side content, and Kaneshiro's knack for helping people in need by beating up a bunch of thugs are all here, blended in the FotNS lore, art style, and story. If you're a fan of either the anime or the Yakuza games, this may be the best gateway to finding out more about the other.
Pro Awesome cel-shaded graphics styled after the Fist of the North Star anime
The visuals recreate the Fist of the North Star anime perfectly. Even on their own, the sharp cel-shaded graphics are amazing, giving each character and location a unique look that helps them stand out from other games. The ridiculously bulky guys are over-the-top in their strength in a cool way, giving you a solid idea of what the game itself is about: beating up bad guys, becoming stronger, and protecting the people you care about.
Cons
Con Exploring the open world wasteland quickly gets old
The post-apocalyptic wasteland of the world looks cool at first, but the excitement doesn't take long to wear off. You spend most of your time driving in a buggy from place to place across giant swaths of empty landscapes, beating up thugs in your way. It's repetitive and boring to have to do this over and over again without much variety in the locations.
Con Questionable English localization and voice acting
The English text and voices aren't the best. Some of the subtitles at the bottom don't actually read as what the characters are saying, and the actual localization is a little off from time to time. And the English dub is not that great, either, with the voice actors not really nailing the right tone or emotions that their Japanese counterparts pull off quite well. Luckily, there's the option to play with the Japanese voices, but you still have to deal with the iffy English subtitles.
Con The story isn't completely welcoming to newcomers
While the story itself is easy to follow, with Kaneshiro fighting against his enemies keeping his beloved from him, the lore and everything else can be hard to pin down for anyone not familiar with the Fist of the North Star anime. Characters get introduced in the story without much explanation of who they are in the show; fans of the anime will automatically know who they are, but anyone else will be out of the loop. This can be a bit discouraging for, say, Yakuza fans who are brand new to FotNS, so you may have to do some searching around on the internet to figure out who is who.