Black Belt (1986 video game)

Black Belt is a beat 'em up in which the player takes control of a martial artist named Riki, who sets out to rescue his girlfriend Kyoko from his rival Wang. The game is composed of a series of left-to-right, side-scrolling stages (or "chapters") in which Riki must utilize punches, kicks, and jumps to defeat different types of minor underlings and the occasional sub-boss. Each boss is susceptible to only one type of attack, demanding that the player exploit their opponent's weakness and use it to finish them off. The game contains an option that allows a second player to alternate with the first. ==Development and release==

Black Belt was developed and published by Sega. In Japan, the game was titled Hokuto no Ken and was an adaptation of the manga of the same name. Mutsuhiro Fujii recalled that the company's design teams were working on about 20 titles simultaneously by the time the Mark III went to market. Having just acquired the Hokuto no Ken license, his team created this game utilizing the console's improved one megabit cartridge technology. While Fujii served an unknown role in its production, it was programmed by Yuji Naka prior to his involvement in the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog. Naka also created the bosses and enemies after having been given a rough outline of them from the planner. When he was unsure about their design he would read the relevant parts of the manga. Naka revealed that the team questioned if it was appropriate to integrate certain parts of the story into requirements for defeating bosses if some players were unfamiliar with the source material. Naka was heavily exposed to Hokuto no Ken through a friend before he accepted the Sega job, but professed he was not a fan. Hokuto no Ken was released in Japan on July 20, 1986. The Black Belt localized version was first shown the month prior at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show alongside the Master System and its starting lineup of software titles for regions outside Japan. Major alterations were made during localization to remove all ties to the Hokuto no Ken property. For Black Belt, most of the character sprites and backgrounds were changed, some of the music is different, and more health restoratives were added. Black Belt was released in North America in November 1986 and in Europe in August 1987. Ariolasoft held the distribution rights to the game in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Holland. However, due to violence, the game was banned from sale to those under age 18 in Germany per the Protection of Young Persons Act from 1987 to 2012. Tec Toy published the game in Brazil. Sega developed a 1989 sequel for the Mega Drive, which was released internationally as Last Battle and was once again stripped of the Hokuto no Ken license. An enhanced remake of Hokuto no Ken featuring 3D polygonal graphics was released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan on March 25, 2004 as the 11th entry in Sega's Sega Ages 2500 line, with the original version added as a bonus. Its inclusion was specifically requested by Naka. Naka was consulted about a software bug found in this emulation's ROM image and promptly fixed it just by looking at its code. The original game can also be unlocked in the 2018 PlayStation 4 title Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise. The western release of Lost Paradise retains the original Japanese rendition of Hokuto no Ken rather than its Black Belt counterpart. Music tracks from both the Mark III and Master System versions were included on the Sega SG-1000 30th Anniversary Collection album released by Wave Master in Japan on July 31, 2013. ==Reception and legacy==

Critical reception for Black Belt has been mixed. Print and online media outlets disagreed on the quality of its visuals and gameplay while commonly comparing it to Irem's Kung-Fu Master. A duplicate review from Mean Machines Sega and Computer and Video Games in their "Complete Guide to Consoles" highly recommended Black Belt for being "tough and challenging" and one of Sega's better beat 'em ups. Retronauts was recommendatory of the original Japanese version owing to its graphics, fast-paced action, and faithfulness to its source material. The writers declared, "It's definitely a game that shows its age but compared to the licensed shovelware of the era (not least of all, the very similar but far worse Hokuto no Ken game released for Famicom just weeks after this one) it's not hard to see why this game is still fondly remembered as both a great Hokuto no Ken game and a great Mark III title." Computer Gaming World labeled Black Belt a "straight ahead imitator" of Kung-Fu Master and the most traditional among Sega's Master System martial arts games. The magazine commended the game's inclusion of a basic plot and its instruction booklet's differentiation of oriental combat styles but mocked its translation. Buchanan criticized the potential for the player to die during boss fights and then have to start the entire game over. Sega claimed that the game contributed to Japanese Mark III hardware sales upon its release, though the console suffered slow sales in the region overall during its lifespan with only about 80 of its total 360 games being released there. ==Notes==