Fist of the North Star (arcade)/Advanced

Jump Install (star removal)
The Jump Install "feature" originally comes from the Guilty Gear series developed by ARC System Works. By cancelling the jump start animation, it basically allows you to perform an extra jump where you couldn't do so. This is extremely used in GG but is rather different in Hokuto No Ken. The Jump Install feature of HNK only allows you to remove an extra star on moves that originally don't remove a star.

The best example of it would be Thouther's Spear Toss move ( or ). If you perform it in a regular combo starting from a Grave Shoot, you won't remove a star, but if you Jump Install the move by performing  or (i.e by performing a Sagat-like Tiger Knee motion), the game will register it as an air move done on ground and a star will disappear.

The Guilty Gear "Jump Install"-like feature of HNK is mostly used by Thouther and Shin players since it allows them to remove extra stars without using much boost (Thouther doesn't need boost for his J.I.) and can be useful to link combos into the Fatal Strike / Deadly Fist Blow ultimate move.

Hit Stop Cancel
The Hit Stop Cancel feature of HNK relies on both Boost & Aura gauge. You can instantly cancel the hit pausetime of a basic move into a super move by pressing both the button required by the super move and the boost button, provided that you have boost & aura in the respective gauges.

Most seen examples of H.S.C. are Toki's cancel into  and Raoh's  cancel into, giving the feeling of accelerated super moves.

Damage Reset
Hokuto No Ken features damage reduction to prevent overpowered combos : the more you hit, the less life you remove. Although this works quite well in the game, there are cases where your move will be considered as a standalone one and will not be affected by that damage reduction : that's called the damage reset. Damage Reset only concerns super moves that deal multiple hits, like :
 * Toki's Hokuto Ujuu Danjin Ken [[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_C.png]]
 * Rei's Nanto Sakei [[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_A.png]]
 * Kenshiro's Tenha Kassatsu [[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_A.png]]

Star Limit Override
The game has a 3-star-per-combo limitation but as stated earlier, a way to override this limit has been found.
 * [[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_B.png]][[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_D.png]] Special Throw doesn't seem to be registered in the star count limit
 * When opponent is in dizzy state, the star limit isn't active.
 * Mr. Heart's Special Throw infinite in Itee mode removes all seven stars.

These behaviours have led to four or five star combos, meaning that you can kill your opponent if the required conditions are met since those combos are specific to few characters and generally require 3 boost stocks in order to be performed. Characters who are known to override the star limit are Rei, Raoh, Thouther & Mr. Heart.

You won't see much of them in casual matches nor tournaments since they usually require 2 or 3 boost stocks and can be easily missed. Boost is vital for some characters & for pkoes so players tend to preserve it as much as possible. Boost is also kept to perform bugged combos since they require less stocks, lead to 100 % combos and refill the depleted boost stocks.

Boost Bug(s)
This is just a list of known bugs concerning Boost. It only covers the main issues with that feature, but there are more minor ones that are not mentioned.
 * Whenever you consume a Boost stock by pressing [[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_E.png]], you will randomly deplete 20 % or 50 % of it, there's no control possible over that.
 * Boosting few ground moves make them go in the air when they shouldn't (check the video above concerning Star Override for example)
 * You can stock Boost at an amazingly fast rate when performing Dribble or Hyakuretsu combos and on other instances but the required conditions aren't clear since this is a game issue.
 * Boosting Rei's Nanto Gekisei Kakubu [[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_C.png]] in a certain way results in an endless hit glitch [ARCADE only]
 * Boosting Shin's Nanto Senjuzan [[Image:HNK_Atomiswave_Button_C.png]] in a certain way results in Shin becoming invincible [ARCADE only]