The game is based on the Fist of the North Star anime and manga of the 1980s. The game was developed by Arc System Works, which also created the Guilty Gear, Blazblue, and Sengoku Basara X games. Perhaps I just enjoy the gameplay of the Arc System Works too much, because I really enjoyed playing this Hokuto no Ken game, or maybe its just that Arc System really know how to make good fighting games. Yes, that is the reason why I like their titles so much. Graphics are great and what you expect from Arc System Works. The sprites are clean, crisp, and well animated. That goes for the characters in the foreground and all graphics of the backgrounds as well. The music is also great and typical of the development team. The gameplay is just like that found in Guilty Gear and Sengoku Basara X. It is extremely fast paced, combo driven, and deadly if mistakes are made. There are a couple of differences though. There are attack reversals like Baiken from GG has, but I think all the characters here has one attack reversal. The deathmove a.k.a. Fatal K.O. can be committed without having to unlock its usage with a touch of a button. In other words you can launch it without delay and while in a combo. But, it can only be launched when the 7 stars of your opponent's big dipper constellation has been totally depleted. There are also unblockable attacks, which keeps people from relying on blocking too much. The gameplay seems more sophisticated than in Guilty Gear or Sengoku Basara X,...and each character has a much higher ability of moves and actions than in both games...but that is a good thing because there are only 10 characters in the game. That is a very low number for a 2D sprite fighting game,...but each character is much, much deeper in abilities and very more distinct in their own moveset personality than in most other fighting games. Has arcade, vs cpu, vs 2p, history, and survival modes, plus, the options mode.