Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

Note that the demo doesn't nearly do the game justice, even in the 'open world' segment. Lots of the game's finer elements don't show yet. Need to get back into this game.

Showcased basically everything the game has in the core in this boss fight. Infinite juggles, back-attacks power after a Square Triangle stagger, burst knockdown, charge kick knockdown on wakeup. Just messed up one input near the end. Enjoy :)

That one was a beautiful display! I actually fought this boss recently and he kicked my ass hard (Still managed to beat him without using items, which is my main objective in general), seems the Square-Triangle stagger is really the best combo opener in the game bar none, I should definitely exploit that one more.

Funny enough, the boss that comes after that one felt much easier overall, maybe because I was less sick/more focused for it, but at least I feel like I'm getting slightly better, and your videos definitely help with that!

Beat this a few weeks ago, really good, about what Roy said. Yeh I found the quick dialogue skip input shortly after that comment, it’s a life saver, given the brunt if dialogue was uninteresting to me. But it still can’t skip animations sadly, which is a lot of dead time.

Yeah I tend to share that concept, I really want to beat bosses the first time through at least without items so it felt like I won, otherwise you can win way too easily I feel. The gut-punch is fantastic, some other bosses have some answers to it sadly but nothing too special.

And yeah the series really needs a 'skip conversation' button. No excuse for it being absent imo.

Indeed, using items makes most fights very easy as long as you're at least decent at the game, given how much inventory space you have. I do use them in Long Battles since it feels more fair, but on one-on-one fights, I prefer not abusing that possibility.

And indeed, we can already skip cutscenes so letting us skip conversations seems like a good option too, sadly all we have is the fast forward.

Well, I finished the game today! Or at least the main story! Overall I had a lot of fun, mostly thanks to the combat system, Hard Mode on a first playthrough was decently challenging, I've never had a Game Over but I came close a few times, mostly due to not wanting to use items.

A little gripe with the combat is that the gut punch feels like the only somewhat safe combo opener on bosses, kinda limits your options a bit, but maybe I just didn't figure out some other technique.

Hey man! Glad you liked it and had fun! There's a lot to find in the game and to play. How did you like the 'final long fight'?

In terms of the combat, there are other openers, just not a lot. You can also use the launcher (dodge + T) including some regular punishes, but the gut-punch is really just the best option I feel. Strangely some bosses do resist it, like the Arena version of Toki.

The final Long Battle was pretty great! Lots of moving around and a ton of enemies to kill which is always fun! In contrast, the final boss himself was... pretty weak, I was 5 levels above him, but even then he felt a bit too easy.

The launcher was indeed pretty useful at times, yeah, juggles are really good in this game after all.

The Long Battle is so damn cool. The music is so beautiful. It's probably my favorite part of the game besides the boss battles.

I don't like the main villain. He's yet another Yakuza ass-pull villain who randomly shows up at the end to reveal his grand plan. Nadai was much more interesting than Mr. Jojo reject. I wonder if we'll ever get another Yakuza story as good as 0. That was the only one where they just kept it grounded the entire time. They just can't resist spazzing and having a dumbass plot twist in every game.

Anyway... what did you think of the game overall?

Long Battles in general were my favorite parts of the game, the fighting system is incredibly fun and mowing down hordes of enemies is a great feeling! Especially since you have a lot of Secret Techniques that are mostly used on regular enemies so you can kill them in so many different ways!

I agree with you about the main villain, while the twist about his accomplices was pretty interesting, it felt like it came a bit out of nowhere and didn't amount to much in the end, Nadai was a much more interesting antagonist, as you said, and put up a better fight too.
The story was overall fairly unremarkable to me, it had some nice moments, but nothing that blew me away, the game mostly shines thanks to its combat for me and thankfully gives a lot of content based on that, like the Bounty Hunter missions which actually had a decent (If predictable) story too.

I liked how they implemented the whole serie's canon though, showcasing all the big characters at least a little - great reference for the fans for sure and a nice intro for newcomers who are interested in learning more.

Agree the bountymissions were great fun too, though I guessed really quickly who the Ripper was sadly.

Put the game on hold for a bit, but it really is a title I see myself coming back to once every now and then!

Great game to play. However, I am not a big fan with the driving. Not to mention that you have a short space to travel outside the vehicle. Has anybody ever used auto-targeting?

I tend to avoid the lock-on in this game considering how much better it is to free-run. It can be useful for specific dodges at times though! Kind of similar to Yakuza where lock-on is a very situational thing.

Okay, what does Blades and Shots do for Equipment?

Finished this game on hard. I think it's a bad game with a good combat system, so it's still fun in my eyes. Ridiculous story, grinding activities, boring side stories and Keshiro has no charisma.
None of that matters when you fight because IN THAT MOMENT you are Kenshiro. I like to interact with the ambient, to grab enemies or pick objects in Yakuza 0/Kiwami, but FOTS has better enemies and different stun statuses to work around with.
Now I'm doing Extra hard on NG+ and it's too easy, but it should be a good challenge on a fresh save with some restrictions.

Are there builds?

There aren't builds. The skill tree gives Kenshiro new secret techniques and combos in battle, but you can use everything that is unlocked.

Sorry, I meant to post that in the FF15 topic.

What would be the best method to preform the Wingbreaker? I'm trying to max everything.

https://youtu.be/MDwSwdbSrFk?t=189

Easiest way imo, do a dash-launcher while enraged. You can use the rage as a cancel of the launcher too if you want as shown here: https://youtu.be/MDwSwdbSrFk?t=370

Nadster wrote:Okay, what does Blades and Shots do for Equipment?

Just to answer my own question, it is close and ranged weapon defense. Oh yeah, and I take back what I said about the bartender minigames. Oh yeah, this slipped my mind. I know that there New Game+. What carries over exactly?

NG+ carries over you stats and equipment iirc.

Was checking Amazon and found it on sale for 20 bucks. I'm thinking about it,but I'm not completely conviced. From what I saw between reading the topic and watching some of Roy's and Devileon's video the combat looks a like a ton of fun, but the thing that stops me are the open world setting and the sidequests. The only other Yakuza game I played is Kiwami 1 and while I really liked the combat and the story fights, I seriously couldn't stand the fact that every single sidequest was either a fetch quest or a fight with the same 3 goons. Moreover the Majima Everywhere system completely killed the game for me, as getting stopped by him every fucking step was incredibly infuriating.
So how's this game in that department? I know there are a lot of sidequest, but are they at least more varied and insteresting than the one in Kiwami 1?

Just picked this up, it is 20 dollars digital. I am 7 hours in and have seen 0 side quests. Lots of fights and bosses. When the open world driving happens it allows you to get in huge fights whenever you want, so that's a plus.

The combat is interesting, still figuring out. There is a ki pulse that stuns everyone around you so you can finisher them. It is super broken, but seems to be the only way to do well in the huge 20 man fights.

The sidequests are pretty good in this one and the gameplay is quite varied. You have te remember that Kiwami 1 was just a texture pack for a nearly 15 year old game at that point with imported combat, they changed nothing. They've improved a lot.

> ki pulse
Not sure what you mean by that one.


> fights
Most interesting is the meter management imo, once you get the ability to generate Sparkling Sparks you can generally have infinite meter which really opens the combat up.

> ki pulse

R3 + L3, stuns everyone around even bosses. You can beat some bosses no damage without having to do anything but that. It only costs one star and the heat moves usually fill it back up.

My mind is *still* a blur. Got footage of it? Jesus I played this game to hell and back when it came out but I really have forgotten stuff about it..

Royta/Raeng wrote:The sidequests are pretty good in this one and the gameplay is quite varied. You have te remember that Kiwami 1 was just a texture pack for a nearly 15 year old game at that point with imported combat, they changed nothing. They've improved a lot.

That is great to hear as I really wanted to revisit the Yakuza series in general as I really liked the combat and the story of Kiwami 1.

This is the ki pulse, it completely negates this boss and most enemies stun in one hit. Some take two to three. It isn't completely broken on bosses for that reason, but any group fight you can just blast it twice and perfect channel the whole group lol.

*Never* used that move haha. What the hell.

EDIT: this was always my playstyle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDwSwdbSrFk

Just used the perfect channel for the sparks, infinite meter haha. But really don't even recall that move you just showed. Wonder if I ever even used it haha.

That footage is mostly the lowest of mooks and you were so high level they were all already stunned, so not really comparable to someones first run.
I would love to see how you fought some of the 20+ man small arena open world/ Colosseum fights that have multiple giants, fattys and ranged mooks at once without using ki pulse or burst ground pound.
Ki pulse makes them easier, without that they are next to impossible to no damage.

I have a birdman mentality of if I get hit i did something wrong. I am always wondering if that fight was possible no damage. Some RGG games are just horseshit in that regard, Yakuza 3 group fights because of the blocking, you can't do no damage. Yakuza 4 it is possible in most instances.
People rarely upload the long battles or crazy group fights for yakuza, they focus on bosses.
The group fights are much more interesting to me because they can get so crazy.

If you weren't using ki pulse i could only imagine those 20+ group fights weren't very fun, or you used a lot of ground pound, or were fine with healing.


One on one fights ken is a monster for sure, but the groups play very differently. It is crazy how the normal mooks all do that running tackle move constantly, you cant stay still for a second or you are hit.

Also if you had used ki pulse you wouldn't praise the meter management because there is no reason to use anything in burst mode over the ki pulse. Burst is only useful for stuff like the tiger drop.

IE: you could burst and do ground pounds or something to clear a group, but you burst your whole meter is gone even if you ended the battle with half left or didn't get a PC. Or you could do two ki pulses and perfect channel everyone and keep your entire meter for the next fight. Ki pulse beats burst everytime.
You also cannot ki pulse in burst. If you could I would use burst just to see some of the heat actions.

That footage of me is on a vanilla run too on the hardest setting, just did a lot of sidequests (all of them). It's the second to last "long battle". I really use a lot of XPup talismans just before activating Burst which really helps with leveling.

> how do I do the arenas
Same tactic as there, meter management and use of talismans. If you do a perfect channel you get a sparkling essence, which fills your meter to max. If you pick one up while you're in Devil Trigger it fills up behind the scenes, meaning you can trigger it again afterwards immediately. You're practically god in DT with the groundpound, kicks and all those super-heatmoves. Especially since enemies can't reallly handle your jump and aerial mobility.

I always make sure I have two sparklings left, that's why I always do the one where you stand on top of them, easiest to time I feel.

> without burst ground pound
Flying kick generally and launchers to divide them. I use Light Heavy a lot too as it crumples enemies for a really long time. I didn't finish my NUR on this game though so cannot comment to far in regards to that.

The launcher into the charged dropkick also deals a ton of splash damage, I remember abusing that too. Also AoE heatactions help at times. Also Light Heavy sets up a free launcher infinite which helps. You can also abuse it against boss-type enemies to crumple them and then attack them from behind to get a free combo going which helps a lot to mop up. Having Toki's moves helps a lot too. The Counter stance is great too if you have the meter.

Here's another fight, I suck against flamethrowers though haha, always screw up that heat action timing and get roasted:
https://youtu.be/a9xEZ7YApPw

Enfin, that's my take on it. As noted it's been a few years since I played it, but I don't recall the arena's giving me too much trouble with one exception.


> if I get hit I fail
Yeah that's not my style at all haha. To each their own.


> Yakuza
Depends on the game and which fight. There are no-damage videos of all of them from different users IIRC, mostly from DevilDante or whatever his name was, but most of them are super dull since you have to play so safe. Kiwami is ironically one of the funner ones to no-damage if you play your cards right since you can get Tiger drop pretty early IIRC.

I guess we can't really be on the same page with how useless burst is if you never used the ki pulse move to see how broken it is ha.
Toki for instance is completely demolished by it, two ki pulses and he is in stun into heat move, repeat, no damage toki lol.

I just unlocked the auto dodge into aerial moves so i can see how that would open things up.
The only reason for me to use burst is just for fun, to see different animations.

Haven't been using talismans as well, seems cheesy like weapons in yakuza.

Do missions ever make you explore the open world? Trying to decide if i should do it early or wait.

Burst imo is still just as borked due to its output and safety. But I'd have to put the game in again for sure. But from your posts it seems you're still in the early game since you ask about the open world? Wonder how ki-pulse holds up.

> auto dodge
It's a fun fallback but as noted, you should just be in Burst 24/7 anyway since you have infinite meter. It helps if you manage your meter badly and only have a few orbs and need that knockdown/damage.

> talisman
They are pretty fun to use, some are AoE stuns, some give massive XP bonuses or damage buffs, some give pretty fun and unique Heat actions etc. If it's a tool, use it I'd say. Especially in a game like this where there isn't a lot to master, it's more about having fun with all the different abilities and options I'd say. There's a few really broken ones though. It's sometimes fun to just melt a boss with them though. If you play your cards right you can skip most bosses by just going BOOM with the Talismans haha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqIwW45PyMI

I mean that shit is just super cool

> cheesy
Well, you are promoting an AoE stun that nukes everything, so I guess we just like different flavours of cheese

> open world
Yeah it becomes more open after a while. Some sub-missions are locked behind certain chapters though iirc.

I captured a fight with the pulse to give you an idea of the power, i'll upload it soon.

>promoting an AoE stun that nukes everything

Not promoting so much as saying it makes the entire burst mechanic and most of a skill tree kinda pointless lol

> open world
I was meaning do the story missions take you to each section of the open world or do you have to go out of your way optionally to explore it for whatever side missions are there. Didn't know if it was like the yakuza 5 hunting thing, just a side grind.


Any bosses, long battles you remember being tough that I could try the ki pulse spam on? ha
Really curious how far it will get me.

Cool, look forward to it!

> burst is broken
To someone who had no idea Kipulse existed, it sure was Note outside of Burst, I felt the gutpunch really was broken due to how powerful it was in terms of setups. I feel it is one of the few ways to get a good safe combo on some bosses.

Also once upgraded you are immortal during Burst IIRC, so it literally is gamebreaking in a sense haha since you can stay in it indefinitely.

> hard parts
Oef. That's hard to say. The longest Long Fight is near the end. The hardest boss is probably eh...Raoh probably. If you face him head on. He's insanely easy to bait and punish if you stay at a distance (bait flame, hit few times, escape). Wonder how it'll do against him. Rei can also be all sorts of BS if you let him. Thouzer is obviously going to be interesting due to his unique style.

> openworld
Oh! No, you have to get to a few on your own, the main game only gives you half the game map iirc.

This is one of those games I kind of half want. Still too expensive here though. I don't really like Yakuza games but from your videos it looks and feels really different. Maybe if I see it super cheap.

Are there many status effects?

Why are all the enemies in your videos in a state where you can do one of those pressure point attacks already?

>Why are all the enemies in your videos in a state where you can do one of those pressure point attacks already?

If you over level your enemies by enough they can be in a constant state of stun.

This game feels just like yakuza. The difference is you stun them first to do the heat moves. Everything else is almost identical. Even burst mode was introduced in Yakuza 5 with kiryu.
If you don't like yakuza you probably won't like this, unless you super love Hokuto and get a lot out of the story and cool animations.

>Are there many status effects?

No. Maybe you can burn people. There are items with some elemental resists but that's just for enemies with flamethrowers.

First, here is a video showing how the Ki Field can dominate groups.




Now I have been using more burst and it has its uses. I think the best way to handle swarms is, Ki Field mass stun to get a PC full orb or two, then burst, use ground pounds and throws to thin the crowds, pick up orbs rinse repeat. Burst also just gives you access to some cool tech so I have been using it more for the flashyness of it.

There are a lot of abilities that give you bonus moves and damage when at low life, (star of death), but dying on a boss refills your health? Is there really no way to stay at low life or bring your health down in a boss battle?

In yakuza 3 you could eat worms to lower life to gain access to the low life moves.

I think the best thing I can say to this is: "why not both" haha! As you note Ki Field does a massive stun for about 1-2 orbs. You can for example do Ki Field, do 3 perfect channels to get three sparkles, then burst to go ham and do Ki Field again to stagger everything and just stay in Burst while spamming Ki Field. At least, assuming you can do Ki Field while in burst?

> burst for flashyness
That and it has some really good heatmoves with fun setups. Doing launcher into activation into the AA burst is a lot of fun. Melts bosses too if leveled.

But yeah it looks seriously busted. I'm honestly starting to wonder if I even unlocked it or ever used it. From what I read it also deals extra 'stagger' if done from behind, might be worth toying with that too against bosses that are resistant to it.

> status effects
You can burn people with some special talismans but that's it.

> low life
I haven't used it, but IIRC there's gear that drains your health and you can buy an item lateron that deals damage to you but...I might be mistaken here. I remember the Arena not healing you so I would damage myself sometimes there and try to No-damage a section on Legend difficulty.

You're making me interested in picking this up again haha, fun to talk about this game. Feel it is one of the more mechanically interesting games by the studio.

>You can for example do Ki Field, do 3 perfect channels to get three sparkles

This is exactly what I have been doing and it is unbelievably broken, but still good fun.

>assuming you can do Ki Field while in burst?

No, you can't unfortunately. That is the only balancing they did haha

>From what I read it also deals extra 'stagger' if done from behind, might be worth toying with that too against bosses that are resistant to it.

Interesting. I have have to experiment more. My go to boss set up had been dodge behind, Ki Field, ususally does around half stagger, ST gut punch, STT juggle into heat move.

Thouzer laughed at my Ki Field spam since he is damage based, I assume Tiger Drop works great on him.

>one of the more mechanically interesting games by the studio

I mean it has proper juggles. Juggling feels very similar to god hand, especially stronger enemies flipping out of it.
Trying to squeeze in as much damage as you can in a juggle before the air grab finisher is awesome.

Dragon engine was a mistake lol
It's like they were finally figuring out how to add complexity and they threw it all away.

I am learning some crazy tech with this game.

First: There is a heat move when you dodge near two mooks that are in meridian shock.
This means you can Ki Field into dodge, immediately into heat move rinse repeat.
Perfectly safe, albeit slow, way to clear large groups, two guys at a time.
It even works on giant enemies. Way too op.

Second: You can Ki Field while blocking. On the Jagi fight I did some experimenting and found out if you spam Ki Field while blocking a combo string, the second there is an opening you will Ki FIeld counter hit them out of his combo. In Jagis case it does good meridian shock damage, and basically resets him. He is so aggressive you can bait this out easily. Need to try this on the other bosses and get some footage.

It sucks that all this tech just breaks the game 100 times more ha
I don't know how anyone has time to try the talismans, everyone is literally already dead.

If you're talking about Hokuto Merciful execution, you don't need 2 enemies to be in Meridian shock, you just need to dodge between 2 enemies period. It's the safest way to clear groups of enemies, it's just terribly, terribly slow, lol

Yeah that execution is absolutely broken, only balanced by it putting you to sleep. You can easily nuke entire waves with it if you wish.

> breaking the game
Eternal proof imo on how a broken game is so much more fun than a balanced one haha!

>Hokuto Merciful execution, you don't need 2 enemies to be in Meridian shock

You absolutely must have them in shock to do it. You are probably having late game memories where you were overleveled and everyone was already in shock.
It says so in the abilities screen and I have tested it. It isn't THAT broken ha