In both Hokuto no Ken and its international reskin Black Belt, Kenshiro/Riki defeats almost every boss using a finishing move punctuated by on-screen kanji subtitles, reflecting both the manga and anime versions of its source material Fist of the North Star. However, the subtitles are rewritten specifically for Black Belt despite remaining in untranslated kanji:

• 北斗百裂拳 (Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken), used against Shin/Ryu, is renamed 鉄拳制裁 (Tekken Seisai). While this is Kenshiro's signature move throughout the series, it is not accurate to the fight against Shin, which instead concluded in the source material with Kenshiro using Hokuto Juji Zan (北斗十字斬).
• 北斗壊骨拳 (Hokuto Kaikotsu Ken), used against the Colonel/Hawk, is renamed 悪党撃破 (Akutō Gekiha).
• 北斗七死星点 (Hokuto Shichishi Seiten), used against Devil Rebirth/Gonta, is renamed 闘魂一発 (Tōkon Ippatsu).
• 北斗有情拳 (Hokuto Ujō Ken), used against Souther/Rita, is renamed 極意炸裂 (Gokui Sakuretsu).

Additionally, Black Belt adds a new finishing move, 懺悔無用 (Zange Muyō), for the stage four boss, Oni. This is due to an element of the source material that would not carry over effectively to the reskin. In Hokuto no Ken, the stage four boss is Toki, an ex-classmate and brother in arms who Kenshio amicably spars with before learning Ujo no Ken, a variant of the otherwise lethal Hokuto Shinken martial art that Toki uses for medicinal purposes. Consequently, Kenshiro does not use a finishing move against Toki in the game. However, because this story element is not retained in Black Belt, Toki's equivalent in that version is a standard villain, thus necessitating a more conventional conclusion to his boss fight. The one other boss without a finishing move, Raoh/Wang, remains unchanged, with Black Belt upholding Raoh's method of death in Fist of the North Star (in which he fires his soul into heaven after conceding defeat).

In January 1997 interview with Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima published in the Sega Magazine about their early days working for the company, he was told by an interviewer about the game (specifically talking about the original Japanese version based on Fist of the North Star) being a masterpiece on the Master System. He asked Naka if he was asked to make it? He responded:


Ohshima commented on Naka's response, that he had never heard that story before and it made him think "ah hah, so that’s why he wouldn’t let me do the musclemen type characters I’ve wanted to draw for so long."