Hokuto no Ken [Master System] cheats and tips
Invincibility, stage selection, how to recover energy, extra stage, infinite energy, walkthroughs and more.
Published (or updated) in February 19th, 2025.
Here we have the cheats, tricks and tips for the Sega Master System game Hokuto no Ken, the original Japanese version of Black Belt. It features the same characters, plot and title as the cult and enormously seminal manga and anime known internationally as Fist of the North Star.
Released a few months before Black Belt, Hokuto no Ken, at first glance, seems to have only a few different colors, graphics and music from the Master System’s beat ’em up that became more famous in the west, but there are some changes in the gameplay and, mainly, in the cheats, as we will see.
The tricks consist of invincibility, stage selection, how to recover energy, extra stage, infinite energy, walkthroughs and more. Note that we considered the original controls from the Master System’s gamepad. If you are playing Hokuto no Ken on an emulator, configure the inputs correctly on the software.
Now, let’s do it.
Video
The video below is from our partners at the Gaming Room and shows and teaches how to cheat on SMS Hokuto no Ken:
Extra stage (or Chapter 7)
In Master’s Hokuto no Ken, there is a seventh chapter that is a boss rush, where Kenshiro will face all the bosses one by one again, but without recovering energy between fights.
To activate Chapter 7, you must finish the game once and keep pressing up several times after defeating Raoh, at the part of the final message that appears after Ken and Yuria meet again. Some say that 20 times is enough, but it is advisable to do more, just to be sure.
This secret stage procedure works the same way we teach in Black Belt‘s tricks as well.
How to recover energy
This cheat only works in Chapters 1, 3 and 4 and consists of doing a flying kick upwards (Down, Up + Kick) when the timer reaches “080“, then the letter “E” will appear floating. If you manage to catch it, the energy bar will be completely restored.
You can also recover Kenshiro’s health without using cheats: just hit a certain number of enemies (we counted 10), which fills his life meter by a small amount.
How to get invincibility
The trick to get invincibility in Hokuto no Ken (it works similarly to the red Black Belt icon) only works in stages 2 and 5.
To activate it, just punch the dog in the face that looks like the one in the movie The Neverending Story that is on top of the temples in these stages. If you do it right, a letter “P” will appear that, when picked up, will grant you temporary invincibility.
Action Replay codes
These codes can be used with the Pro Action Replay device or in emulators such as Emulicious e Fusion:
00DB 9340– Infinite energy00DB 6B12– Activate level selection
Skipping a level directly to its boss
This one is a bit tricky, because you have to defeat a boss without losing energy (like a perfect round in Street Fighter). If you manage to do this, do a high jump forward as soon as the new stage starts. If you do it right, Kenshiro will jump all the way to the end of the level and face the boss of this new chapter directly.
Level selection
At the title screen, you have to quickly and accurately enter the following sequence of commands on Player 2’s controller:
⬆, ⬇, ⬅, ➡, ↖, ↗, ↘, ↙, ⬇, ⬇, ⬇, ⬇, ⬇, ⬇, ⬇, ⬆, ↗, and ↗
If you do it right, the level selection will appear to the right of the game title.
Then with controller 2 you can select a value using up and press a button to start game. The values are:
- 0 – Chapter 1
- 1 – Chapter 1 Boss
- 2 – Chapter 2
- 3 – Chapter 2 Boss
- 4 – Chapter 3
- 5 – Chapter 3 Boss
- 6 – Chapter 4
- 7 – Chapter 4 Boss
- 8 – Chapter 5
- 9 – Chapter 5 Boss
- A – Chapter 6
Note that this cheat is really quite hard to enable: the diagonals must be pressed very precisely, and there is only a small window of time to type the commands.
Defeating the bosses
To defeat the Hokuto no Ken big bosses, not the sub-bosses, but those who are at the end of the stages waiting for Kenshiro for a x1 in a competitive fighting-style, just use the same strategies to defeat the Black Belt bosses, with the exception of Devil Rebirth (Gonta) and Raoh (Wang). The following video, also from Gaming Room, shows how to beat them on Black Belt and you can find more info here:
Tho see who Devil Rebirth and Raoh can be beaten, just watch the longplay with commentary in the next section.
Walkthrough
To make this post more complete, we are also including a Hokuto no Ken playthrough/longplay. You can watch it to learn how to beat any particular part or boss that you’re stuck on. The video is in Portuguese, but has English subtitles:
More info and Master System
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- Categories: Walkthroughs and hints
- Tag(s): Hokuto no Ken, Sega Master System
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