"Get up, Raoh! It’s time for you to return to the heavens!"
Kenshiro stands before Raoh for the final showdown, revealing that he has mastered Hokuto Shinken’s Ultimate Secret Technique, Muso Tensei. Muso Tensei Kenshiro debuted in September 2020 to celebrate the game's 1st anniversary.
Muso Tensei Kenshiro has since become a popular pick in the game, even in the Dojo.
1.5 years have passed since the launch of FIST OF THE NORTH STAR: LEGENDS ReVIVE, meaning our 2nd anniversary is coming up.
We've had the pleasure of releasing a variety of content from Fighters and Outfits to Events and Crossovers.
How did these game features come to be? How did we transform the original manga into a game? We'll be posting entries from time to time to explain this and more.
Muso Tensei Kenshiro is one Fighter in particular that we poured lots of effort into.
We created a 3D model and animation of him based on the original manga, however,
the developers and the original manga artist Tetsuo Hara have extremely high standards.
Both parties endeavored to thoroughly explore Kenshiro's character and Muso Tensei.
■ Muso Tensei Kenshiro
While facing off against one of his fiercest opponents (once a friend),
Kenshiro, who has borne unfathomable sorrow, masters Hokuto Shinken's Ultimate Secret Technique, "Subconscious Transmigration of Souls" ("Muso Tensei"), which allows him to enter the void between life and death.
Thinking of his rivals and brothers, and remembering his love for Yuria,
Kenshiro reflexively unleashes everything in a single attack.
(CV: Kunihiro Kawamoto)
First, let's talk about the Secret Technique Muso Tensei.
Many of you may remember that this technique is first seen when Kenshiro faces off against Raoh in the castle.
In the manga, Kenshiro moves like Toki and attacks using Rei's style.
The original manga depicts Kenshiro using Rei's fighting style to slice through the side of Raoh's torso, but all we see is his fingers flash by.
While it is possible to depict this move by showing just the flash of Kenshiro's fingers, we were determined to have Kenshiro embrace the entire Nanto Suichoken style.
The same move can be witnessed in Rei and Juda's fight. When it was recreated with Kenshiro, it was just as impactful.
It is very easy to picture Secret and Special Techniques by referring to famous scenes in the original manga.
When creating a Fighter, everything from their their stance, posture and passiveness to the way they normally move defines who they are and play an important part when recreating them.
It's easy to refer to scenes from the manga when depicting Kenshiro because there are a lot of scenes to work with.
However, the same can't be said for characters that don't appear much such as Ohgai or Jukei.
Sometimes we're limited in terms of what scenes we can use, but that's a story for another time.
Kenshiro stands poised at the ready, refusing to retreat from Raoh's Heavenly Commander's Charge.
For this, we used the illustration from the title page. It's a striking image that turned out very well in 3D.
Returning to our earlier topic of animation, to create animation, we need to make a 3D model first.
As we already had the previously released SR Kenshiro model to work with, this helped lower the development cost.
However, having Kenshiro's muscles rip through his clothes just wasn't enough this time.
In comparison to SR Kenshiro, this time we made him a lot more buff overall. From his neck to his arms to his chest, and from his femurs to his calves, he's a lot more muscular.
We wanted to emphasize his strength down to the muscles of his clenched fist.
Due to his muscular physique, his joints are also emphasized. In comparison to the early model of SR Kenshiro, he is slightly taller and has a larger build.
This is the buffest Kenshiro ever.
We pursued Hara-sensei's image of Kenshiro as seen in the "Ultimate Edition" of the manga. In this edition, the illustrations were redone and there are scenes where Kenshiro is depicted with an even larger physique.
Hara-sensei even supervised the designs of his facial expressions.
Kenshiro was able to master the power of Muso Tensei because he bore sorrow from having to face off against one of his fiercest foes, whom he also regarded as a friend.
Kenshiro's eyes were carefully illustrated to be sharp yet filled with sorrow.
Even Raoh couldn't help himself from exclaiming, "Wh... What sorrowful eyes he has!"
Hara-sensei was very thorough with his supervision, and through trial and error, eventually we managed to develop the final design which was of high quality and fully satisfied everyone.
As was touched on in the Letter from the Producer (vol. 7), we're going to go ahead with that summer Crossover that fans have been waiting for.
Fighters that will debut for the 2nd anniversary will be nothing short of the best quality. We hope you are looking forward to it.
In future Developer Diary entries, we'll talk about the development of Fighters, Outfits, the process of creating illustrations and much more.
We hope you'll continue to enjoy the game and look forward to what's in store!
