If you haven't seen the hyperviolent but influential series Fist of the North Star, you should know one thing: Its hero, Kenshiro, is a one-man army. Using the martial art of the show's title, Kenshiro can destroy anyone by striking their pressure points. His resistence to pain is legendary: The man can get hit by a steel beam and not move an inch. This cross between Bruce Lee and Mad Max can even destroy a tank with his bare hands.

It's too bad you don't get to play as that Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage.

When developer Koei announced the game, I joked that the developer would never find enemies who could hurt him. Still, Ken’s Rage sounded like a good match for the series, as it’s essentially Dynasty Warriors with a post-apocalyptic backdrop.  

And on a basic level, Ken's Rage works: In each level, Kenshiro kills cannon fodder by the thousands -- their bodies contorting and bursting from the effect of his moves. In between these bouts are cut-scenes depicting the manliest moments from the series.

After a while, however, something strange happens: The enemies start getting back up. In the show, the villains Kenshiro fights wouldn’t last past the first punch. This is a video game, so I understand that they need to be sturdier. But I feel like they take more hits to beat than they should.

Of course, the game also has stronger enemies with special guards that you have to break first. Fair enough, but again Kenshiro’s fists don’t have the same oomph as in the show. In one case, I used Kenshiro’s signature Hokuto Hundred Crack Fist on a hulking warrior. Once Kenshiro uses this move in the series, the foe is “already dead.” In Ken's Rage, it only took out half his life.

I later realized that I haven’t been upgrading my attack stats enough in the skill system. But Kenshiro is destroying the same thugs over and over -- why does he need to level up in the first place? I haven’t even gotten to how almost every hit Kenshiro takes sends him flying like a rag doll.

Kenshiro reminds me of another character that developers have struggled using: Superman. The conventional wisdom is that while it may be fun at first, a character who can’t be hurt would be unchallenging and make the game boring. That’s how every criminal in a Superman game happens to have kryptonite bullets.

The problem is that in a licensed game people want to feel like they’re playing the character. Batman: Arkham Asylum is great not due to difficulty but because you feel like you're Batman. When I’m playing a Fist of the North Star game, I want to be the unstoppable Kenshiro who doesn't labor to get through minor enemies. The Kenshiro of Ken's Rage only feels powerful when using special attacks that come more from Dragon Ball Z than his own show.

By limiting Kenshiro, Koei makes many of the game’s problems -- dated gameplay, dull boss fights, and a severe sense of wasted potential -- worse. I’m usually not a fan of gorefests like Mortal Kombat and God of War, but I like Kenshiro because he stands for the innocent in a world drunk on power. In Ken's Rage, Kenshiro is just a video-game character.