Players take the hard-hitting role of a righteous warrior in a ruined world in Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage. The game is based on Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's manga series, in which the hero Kenishiro uses his expertise in a rare form of martial arts to protect the weak and innocent, during the collapse of civilization after a nuclear cataclysm. Players engage in superhuman hand-to-hand combat against scores of enemy soldiers, completing mission objectives across large, open battlefields.
While the focus of play is on fluid, combo-based melee against multiple foes, as in developer Omega Force's earlier series, the futuristic setting and established fictional characters distinguish Fist of the North Star from the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games. Heroes and villains engage in martial arts battles, instead of wielding medieval weapons, but the results are no less bloody. As in the comics, Kenishiro's mystical style of pressure point-based fighting can cause gruesome wounds and gory deaths. The game offers three main modes of play: "Legend," which follows the original story of the manga series, "Dream," with an original plotline that allows players to take the roles of each of the four Hokuto brothers, and "Challenge," which pits players against endless streams of enemies.