Why You Should Be Excited for Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star

One game that caught many off-guard during the recent Nintendo Direct was Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star. It seemed like such an utterly bizarre mixture of ideas, and many were left wondering what the point was. But the more one thinks about it, the more it makes a surprising amount of sense.

Fitness Boxing was a great game even if it had some flaws that held it back a bit, but Fitness Boxing 2 ironed those out. There was not really anywhere for the series to go to innovate besides adding some more music and making minor tweaks. A Fist of the North Star version, however, provides a lot more opportunities for what can be done, especially in a game about exercise boxing.

As mentioned in the reveal, there are more modes than just the instructors this time, such as a mode where you take down enemies to the beat and a mode where you fight bosses from the series. This instantly adds something new to the experience and offers players who may have gotten bored of Fitness Boxing something new to keep them coming back and exercising in new ways. Given the unique martial arts in Fist of the North Star, it also makes sense to provide a variety of new exercises that make use of the source material.

There is also another aspect of the game that is worth mentioning and that is that Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star is perhaps the closest we will ever get to a home version of the arcade game Fist of the North Star: Fighting Mania. This was an arcade game that required you to hit various pads around the cabinet in order to take down enemies like in the Manga and Anime, and it was something that could not be replicated in the home before. See the video below for a look at Larry Bundy’s cabinet of the game for how it played (warning, adult language is used in the video so it may not be appropriate for all) ( video used with permission)

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Overall, there is a lot to be excited about for Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star. It is a game that is actually trying to innovate on its predecessors and is working to take advantage of the license it has attached in a unique way. This may not be the Fist of the North Star games fans were hoping for, but it may just be the one that we will come to love.

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