Black Belt

Raise your northern star fist!
Originally Fist of the North Star in Japan, Black Belt is nothing more than a basic sidescrolling action game where you beat people up. The concept sounded good on paper, though in execution, it’s decent enough. Repetitious as hell level designs and cheap main boss fights, however, nibble and gnaw at this game, pretty much wrecking what could’ve been a great licensed game (well, it would’ve been considered that in Japan anyway).

Been there, done that.
Each of the game’s 6 levels is extremely similar to one another. Granted that shoot em ups generally have similar level structures, at least they get harder as you go, and certain things change in each level in those types of games anyway. Here, every level is on a flat platform, and all you’re basically doing is moving right while...