Taxan' your patience: Fist of the North Star & Mystery Quest | NES Works 118

[@jong2359]

7:34 - Pardon me, the correct term for these fragments are Narclets... as in giblets, but from Narc - which popularized the use of these body chunk graphical bits ~1 year prior.

[@jamesbevan4479]

0:59 Ah yes, Burai Fighter. I had the "deluxe" version for the gameboy. Now I'm not saying it's a classic, but 12 year old me had fun with it ❤

[@zooropa04]

Wonderful historical context. Bravo.

[@staguar]

Fist of the North Star was one of those games we'd rent because the box looked cool. Then after trying it out for 10 minutes we'd just go back to Tecmo Bowl.

[@benbonaventura2650]

Grocery store rentals never hit. This and NARC got me. 😂😅

[@chaospoet]

Buying Fist of the North Star: "This is going to be awesome and make me feel so alive! I can't wait to play this." Fist of the North Star: "You're already dead."

[@PointZoneTelephone]

wait does this mean "DOG STREET" in The Bouncer (PS2) is a reference to when they used to publish FDS games

[@murphiverse]

Jeremy, I appreciate your restraint of not mentioning Xevious when referencing Star Soldier.

[@JIrish780]

That brief clip of the Jim Henson hour just tugged a few heart strings.

[@toastrave7820]

seeing what's michael at 5:09 is really cool as a fan of borh it & fist of the north star

[@KasumiKenshirou]

The Famicom version of Hokuto no Ken 2 actually did have cutscenes that were removed from the US version for some reason. These are not Ninja Gaiden level cutscenes, though. Another character will just walk onto the screen and (IIRC) they'll say something via on-screen text.

[@handsomedubbledee]

Ahhhh I peeped your username. That's a Fist of the Blue Sky reference. I had that entire run on Raijin Comics until they went defunct. I wonder if anyone else ever caught that bit in your username

[@wariowario9739]

I played mappy land after I saw your review and I actually really enjoyed it

[@pjbrown4736]

The one thing about the games based on manga/anime properties that came out here. We didn't know at the time about them, but in years since, I'm glad to have discovered Fist Of The North Star and Golgo 13 by chance.

[@michaelfields7088]

I remember having trouble distinguishing between Milons Secret Castle and Mystery Quest.

[@aaronmoore6275]

Taxan's Magician was kinda fresh. My corner store used to rent weird-ass nes games back in the day

[@MrTableDesk]

I grew up with this Fist of the North Star. I know it's a rough ride, but I always kinda liked it.

[@HydefHyde]

There is at least one deeper connection with Squaresoft and Mystery Quest - Nobuo Uematsu composed the music for it. Extremely harsh instrumentation aside, the compositions are pretty decent.

[@gfhrtshergheghegewgewgew1730]

the title theme to cruise chaser blassty on pc-88 is one of my favorite uematsu tracks

[@daviddalrymple2284]

Aw, the Jim Henson show (as it was known in Canada).

[@LoloDePuzlo]

When I was in my peak Famicom Disk System rom set dive, I was fascinated by the requirement to beat Mystery Quest 4 times to see the ending (which I also did via emulator...I miss having free time). I played through Hao's Mysterious Quest like 6 times to see if there was any equivalent and lo and behold I was wasting my time though I did see that there were practically new things to collect with each loop. I was much more easily entertained in my early 20s I guess...

[@jbanks979]

+1 Jim Henson hour reference I think the only real excitement with FOTNS, being completely ignorant of the source material, was realizing punches made enemies explode. I just thought it was the most ridiculous poorly made rental I had from that era. (I’m not sure I ever saw mystery quest anywhere, and it’s not like Milon’s secret castle was a masterpiece to begin with)

[@twilightiger]

Holy crap, I remember Mystery Quest. That game was freaking impossible as a kid. Not only did trying to figure out which castle you could go into first take a lot of trial and error going into the wrong castle pretty much softlocked you because you couldn't leave unless you defeated the boss. And good luck with that because collecting the magic scroll that revealed them to you was only possible if you were in the right castle and had the right spells. The rest of the time, they were invisible and would fly across the screen shooting at you until you died.

[@rabiroden]

I'm gonna stretch and call Mystery Quest a Christmas game, based solely on the character's not-Santa hat, and say great timing once again.

[@MaidenHell1977]

Another fantastic episode. I hope you have a very merry Christmas, Jeremy. Looking forward a good new year with you the whole way.

[@SEGAClownboss]

Oooh, underground comics and indie zines were so important to me - they really influenced my personality, life, and career in a big way. I've even had the honour of meating the greats Gilbert Shelton and Robert Crumb. I remember being 12 and bringing those comics to school for my mates to read and feeling this smug sense of superiority for reading comics where all the characters were fucked up dopeheads and sex-craving maniacs, while the other kids would read the more usual adventure or superhero stories. Thanks for that little boost of some good times!

[@thejackal007]

Came to hear about Taxan's games, stayed for the Golgo 13 (and The Big-O) appreciation.

[@handsomedubbledee]

Huge fan of Golgo-13. I have that entire Viz Signature collection in my bookshelf. I wish Viz would have continued printing them but I guess they were just temporary. As for the First of the North Star, I remember having the entire Master Edition run from Raijin Comics. It was awesome. Every page was glossy and in color. It was like watching the anime on a page. I sold it on EBay years ago. I hope the person who bought it took care of them lovingly

[@jimsupreme]

hey, thanks for using a page from my Ninjas VS Aliens comic. Waits for a cheque. keep up the good work.

[@JetstreamGW]

Oh heck, I remember _The Adventures of Lolo_ vaguely. I never did actually play it.

[@goranisacson2502]

Man, wasn't expecting a walkthrough of the early 90's indie-comic scene here, but I also didn't expect the first official FotNS game on western shores to be about the SECOND arc of all things. Like, has any succesful spin-off ever adressed that? Featured it's villains? I feel like first half is all we get.

[@Dynaman21]

Fist of the North Star has had some pretty good games. The Arc System Works fighter is fun, Lost Paradise is amazing because it’s just using the Yakuza engine, and the Ken’s Rage game are fun Warriors brawlers. This is, well, everyone has to start somewhere.

[@mohammedganai9636]

FotNS was something of a guilty pleasure if only for the exploding enemies. (Helped that we just played our cousin's copy.) You could actually repel the projectiles (at least the clubs) by punching them. What didn't help was that IIRC the final level was a boss rush, denying you any possibility of powering up again if you died. Of course I could be remembering this all wrong.

[@FallicIdol]

Rented Fist as a kid. Had no idea what the IP was but thought the name sounded cool. I rented a lot of bad games but usually bought gems

[@Belgand]

Wow... Muppets Tonight. I appreciate the deep dive.

[@Dustin_VG]

To make a worse version of Milon’s Secret Castle is truly to spit in the face of God

[@DaneeBound]

Can we lose a word or two about FotNS’s cover illustration? What exactly possessed them to badly compose two (or three) animation cels from the show on top of each other? Kenshiro and whatshisface look like they don’t even belong in the same shot together. This is all the more baffling, considering they had a non-zero number of VIZ issues to pull from here, _in addition_ to the fact that Mystery Quest (the lesser of the two games here) actually features an original illustration on the cover.

[@RogerPyoko]

The image of Kenshiro walking in the background is actually from the game's Japanese art (which actually had graphic design), but Toki being on the cover is bizarre twice over since he's an ally of Kenshiro and he's not even in the game or story arc the game is based on.

[@TeruteruBozusama]

​@@RogerPyoko he is there in spirit. Maybe...

[@KasumiKenshirou]

@@TeruteruBozusama Regarding Toki, HE'S ALREADY DEAD by the time in the story this game takes place.

[@Cole.....]

Mystery Quest has to be in the running for "most generic NES game title (non-sports edition)". Sounds like something you'd find deep in the recesses of the Atari 2600 library.

[@thecunninlynguist]

i have memories of renting Fist of the North Star, but not really understanding what to do. Had no idea it was based on an anime back then.

[@cerberus144]

There have been ZERO days since a Golgo 13 reference.

[@RoseWaltz]

the violent comics that they brought over made my mom think that ALL media from Japan is violent, and to this day, 30+ years later, she won't give it a shot i loved how different it was to American comics

[@Phreno_Xeno]

"The mind reels, the eyes weep". 😹

[@BillB808]

Did Jeremy just do Burai Fighter dirty? Say it ain't so that game is awesome!

[@JeremyParish]

No, I was calling the games Kid developed for them (mostly) good. Burai Fighter and G.I. Joe are quality fare for sure.

[@BillB808]

@JeremyParish Ok all is well with the world then...Ken Lobb can stand down

[@ValkyrieTiara]

Is Mystery Quest the first NES game to not receive any mention or coverage whatsoever in Nintendo Power?

[@FallicIdol]

I had never heard of it and was an avid Nintendo Power reader and weekend renter

[@RalphBarbagallo]

My mind was blown when I realized Naxat was Taxan spelled backwards.

[@decoyoctopus]

Mystery Quest always scarred me because of what happens when you fall into a hole with water in it and drown

[@decoyoctopus]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/n17UYWl4hcR8eqcsi=0AW5Tbny_LX79mWN&t=849 Noooooooo

[@JeremyParish]

Sorry to dig up your trauma...

[@teeveeparty]

It's Naxat backwards!! Should I be ashamed that I never realized that?

[@jennid8123]

I had Fist of the North Star so I had to get used to it. So, I am biased towards it and get it's less than subtle eccentricities, but I can't just jump into Friday the thirteenth. I am now trying to get into the manga and anime series for Fist of The North Star.

[@oman1825]

Only you can make Fist of the North Star "game" interesting.

[@SynopsisGrim]

I remember seeing the FotNS anime and being psyched to rent the game only to be severely disappointed. The amount of whelm I experienced was far lower than I had hoped for. 😢

[@zubizuva]

When I said I've got that dog in me, this is not what I meant...

[@kenseigerj2659]

2:45 where did you find that? Is it still on youtube?

[@JeremyParish]

I bought a video tape from Japan and digitized it, sorry.

[@kenseigerj2659]

@@JeremyParish I understand, if its not too much to ask, are you willing to upload it like with the famimaga video tape, or is there more copyright red tape with golgo?

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah, I'll probably upload it eventually. I don't think anyone would especially care if I post a VHS motion comic from 35 years ago.

[@gfhrtshergheghegewgewgew1730]

IN THIS LIFE, I HAVE NO REGRETS about watching and loving Big O, but i don't understand why the japanese didn't like it

[@0tt0z]

6:52 Dog the Bounty Hunter?

[@handsomedubbledee]

I played this dungfest on an emulator. Fist of the North Star was that dreadful. The manga is freaking awesome. One of the best comics ever made. The franchise didn't start seeing a great game in America until that Sega game that was released on PS4

[@jayjasespud]

Last Battle for the Genesis sure took after FotNS. Even the enemies flying off screen. (I know they're both FotNS, but different devs)

[@darktetsuya]

before I even begin honestly never would've expected the ElfQuest namedrop! Discovered it in high school an amazing read if you love fantasy stuff. (should be all available digitally I have it on my Kindle.) as for FOTNS, I didn't play it on NES originally, but playing them via emulation... yeah it was not great. I did like Black Belt, though. Mystery Quest I remember renting, thought it was alright but not spectacular. PS. HAO CAN NOT SWIM

[@Leahi84]

Oh my god. Someone pronounced anime and manga correctly! Thank you!!

[@bardofsteel]

Good work quoting the manly death of Raoh

[@absolutezeronow7928]

Yeah, Taxan had a rough slate of releases in 1989. Thankfully, their 1990 fare is better. Fist is at least is marginally playable unlike the first Hokuto no Ken game on Famicom. And yeah Mystery Quest is unmemorable and worse than Milon's Secret Castle.

[@jameshenderson4089]

I just received my analogue duo this morning. Going to run up town and grab an SD card then when I get home I’m playing some salamander followed by sapphire and rondo.

[@anactualmotherbear]

I'm the only one who is a fan of Mystery Quest... and I have indeed played it to completion. The US version doesn't even have the cutscene graphics. I had fun with it though because it cost me virtually nothing. It was sunk in the bargain bin so fast.

[@Chocfacebear]

Yeeeeeah Elf Quest shout out!

[@ZaGorudan]

Oh man, Fist of the North Star. I was getting into the series when I was younger and I was surprised to learn there was an NES game. An even greater shock that it's one of the worst games ever released for the system. Weird that the AVGN never dedicated an episode to it outside of a quick mention somewhere.

[@andrewkaye2108]

I enjoyed the Genesis game, The Last Battle. The name changes and dialogue sucked, but the game entertained me as one of the first Genesis offerings in the U.S.A.

[@therealthirst8099]

🎶Yes I'm the Taxan. Yeah I'm the Taxaaaann 🎶

[@HeadsetGuy]

Ooh yeah, I've been waiting for you to talk about Mystery Quest. I _hate_ that game with a passion.

[@JeremyParish]

It's weirdly bad!

[@XanthinZarda]

The weird thing about Viz and many comic makers is that they saw the tide was coming, but instead of picking the comics that might actually work to translate, they went to the wrong end of the spectrum because it was nearly the 90s, and there was indeed time for the Punisher, the Youngbloods, and the rest of the nadir period of Western Comics, where Frank Miller & Rob Liefeld ruled the narratives, and speculation was afoot! ...When the masses just wanted to relax and breathe in the new decade with a new hope.

[@JeremyParish]

I don't really agree with this narrative. The XTREME flavor of comix thrived well into the mid-to-late ’90s.

[@XanthinZarda]

@@JeremyParish Well, I was well the person whose internal culture was repulsed by their attempts at coolness, such that I even found Sonic's "Way Past Cool" catchphrase with a derisive agreement that in trying so hard to cool that he had looped back to a complete dork. I suppose you could say I was the square hip, man. I've since calmed down. Somewhat.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

Viz probably chose to localize Fist of the North Star because Streamline Pictures had released the Fist of the North Star movie on VHS which was in practically every comic book store in the 1990s, along with Lensman, Akira, and a few others. The Lensman anime movie and TV series (which was NEVER released in the US) have not been released on anything beyond VHS due to the rights holders of the source material (E.E. "Doc" Smith's heirs) not liking the anime adaptation.

[@handsomedubbledee]

​@@JeremyParishI agree. The hardcore comics were huge in the 90s. Some of them were made into cartoons as well like Savage Dragon and The Maxx. I remember reading stuff like Heavy Metal back then. The thing with Viz was that they didn't know how to market their books and manga was almost a new concept to the public at the time. You really had to scour a shop to find anime on tape and manga.

[@JeremyParish]

The Maxx wasn't a hardcore superhero comic, though... that was 100% a surreal Frazetta/Crumb-inspired indie comic wearing superhero drag to trick people into read it.

[@Riz2336]

Never played either of these. Wasn’t missing anything apparently

[@rodneylives]

Aaah! A reminder that The Big-O once existed! Also I was hoping, nay _begging_, that either Tales of the Beanworld or Bone, my personal favorite indie comic breakout hits, would appear in that section, but alas no. I remember Taxan's newsletter (and maybe even ads?) saying the goal of Mystery Quest was to get to ten million points. Thing is, the game contains items that double your score, so that goal was far from out of reach. I rented it and discovered, after looping it two or three times, that your score maxes out at 9,999,990. I was _annoyed_.

[@ibraibraibraibraibra]

我が生涯に一片の悔い無し

[@chadwickjdillon]

I need no help from anyone to return to the heavens!

[@ericjenkins2737]

One of your graphics is worded as Jedla.

[@JeremyParish]

Sorry, Mom

[@ericjenkins2737]

@@JeremyParish Don’t let it happen again or you’re grounded.

[@mariusamber3237]

Fist of the North Star games have never been particularly good, except for the one that is basically Yakuza (Lost Paradise). The RPGs are probably the worst, so it's good that we were spared that kind of pain. Well, it's what it is. At least nowadays manga/anime games tend to be 'somewhat' better on average.

[@AnAverageGoblin]

at least the ps2 era fighting game is fun in an unbalanced way.

[@zaneseibert]

At least the PS1 game's intro is really neat.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

I liked the Playstation 1 exclusive game (as opposed to the Banpresto one that came out on Saturn and was then ported to Playstation). The arcade vs. fighting game was good, too. The Super Famicom games are very disappointing. 6 & 7 are vs. fighting games. I was expecting they'd be awesome and bloody like Mortal Kombat, but they're just terrible. They have good music, though, I guess. (I haven't played the "Yakuza" one. It looks cool, but I don't have the console it runs on.)

[@mariusamber3237]

@@KasumiKenshirou That "Yakuza" one is completely ridiculous, they heavily lean into the absurdity of this setting (though it's serious too when it has to be). It's really damn fun as a result. It's actually closer to that Playstation 1 game, but of course with much better controls/way more stuff to do. If you ever get a chance to play it, I sincerely recommend it. Generally, the fighting games are better for this franchise in my opinion - not surprisingly - but this is a really nice exception from the rule.

[@Skyfire1031]

I’m guessing it’s legacy of the wizard next time?

[@jamesmoss3424]

Fist of the north star is an anime classic series. 😀👍

[@Fear2Stop]

Taxan might have been the most “mid” company during the NES era, and Mystery Quest might have been their defining release (which in this case was NOT a compliment)

[@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526]

Omae wa mo shindeiru

[@jasonblalock4429]

In fairness to Taxan, they did put out a few good games later on. Low-G Man was fun (if janky) for its jumping mechanics and various vehicles, and imo 8 Eyes is an underrated Castlevania-like. Also, while unrelated, I'm still irritated that Sega refuses to port FOTNS Lost Paradise to other systems.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

I'd argue you're overrating 8 Eyes, but GameFAQs helps with the reason people hated it the most back in the day. Low G Man was always a pleasant surprise. No River City Ransom, but still of the better games you could find at the bottom of a bargain bin. It didn't deserve to be there.

[@brandonb6005]

I think Fist Of The North Star drops under the radar on the “bad game” list because few people actually bought it or played it. OTOH, the LJN stuff had licenses that actually appealed to western kids, so they would pick it up. And the vitriol appears tied to being disappointed in the results because it wasn’t explained well and was a little too unforgiving to convince kids to go spading for how to actually play it.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Yeah, I'm in the camp that thinks Friday the 13th is under-appreciated... but it definitely had its problems. It's just a bit too obscure and doesn't give the player enough hints on how to actually succeed, not to mention the full-blast monster faucets being pretty obnoxious. Which is a shame because the mostly-open design was really ambitious for a NES game.

[@EvanCWaters]

Yeah, I figure these games were so low profile that even bad game aficionados didn't pick up on their existence.

[@DeepWeeb]

Imagine the AVGN would say something like _"Mystery Quest? More like _*_MISERY_*_ QUEST!"_

[@Bubblun1]

Funny, I pictured him saying "Taxan? more like Tax-ASS!"

[@MangaDungeon]

history is littered with the corpses of attempts to try and bring Fist of the North Star to the west. The original manga run the NES and Gameboy games that were I assume intended to both be licenced games the 95 dub of the movie the live action film the 99 dub of the tv anime the Gutsoon's short lived full color manga adaptation trying to make its sequel Fist of the Blue Sky a pillar in its monthly manga anthology Raijin Comics it wouldn't see any real success without caveates in the west until it partnered up with fellow "Come on I KNOW you Americans would eat this up" underdog: Yakuza resulting in Fist of the North Star Paradice Lost. turning the plot of the manga into the most "Yeah I didnt see that coming yet this feels so natural" direction of.... basically setting the manga in a Mad Max version of Yakuza's Kamuro-cho And the manga finally would get a real release that seems to have sold well by riding the "Classy hardback edition of an ultra violent classic" wave that Berserk started So this story dose have a happy ending for Kenshiro

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah I'm 10 or 11 volumes into the new hardcover run and plan to see it through to the end. Bless Viz for their service (and for finally finishing Urusei Yatsura, too... now we need Golgo 13).

[@MangaDungeon]

@@JeremyParish Man thats the dream right there. To my surprise they did release a 7 volume run of random chapters back in the 00s but it was included in viz's manga streaming service so.... not an ideal solution but better than id expect

[@JeremyParish]

The Golgo 13 manga run from a few years back was actually 13 volumes (OF COURSE) with two stories apiece, nearly all of which were drawn from the "Best 13 of 13" collections that were published in Japan about 25 years ago. They gotta go deeper, though! Maybe skip the stuff that's Incredibly Problematic by current standards... but the early volumes would be great to see in English, since they do a lot to develop Togo's skills as he makes mistakes and learns from his errors. He's more human and less of a flawless killing robot in those.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Fist of the North Star looks like a true post apocalyptic experience - ie extremely boring

[@KasumiKenshirou]

Yes, it is post-apocalyptic. It's heavily inspired by the Mad Max movies.

[@jonothanthrace1530]

Mystery Quest looks like such a ripoff of MSC that even those dragonflies zooming around look like sad copies of the Hudson Bee.