Developer: Spike Chunsoft Co. Ltd.
Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Tested on: PS4
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows – Review
It’s no secret that Namco Bandai holds the licenses for many games that are based on popular anime series. It’s also no secret that many of these games are mediocre, as they simply serve to keep said licenses. We saw games such as Jump Force, bundling many different popular games in one release, which eventually ended up being only moderately fun. We also saw a game based on The Seven Deadly Sins, which was, also rather timid and repetitive compared to the source material. Now we get to see a digitized One Punch Man game, which, not surprisingly, turned out to be another stale experience.
Story
You get thrown in the One Punch Man universe as an unnamed and insignificant hero that works for the Hero Association. It’s your job to climb the ladder and become an S rank hero, while fighting alongside characters from the series. You’ll get to experience scenes from the series, albeit a bit differently, as sometimes your character will aid a well-known hero, or you will at least stall the enemy long enough for the respective hero to make his move.
The story value is quite slim and doesn’t properly convey the humor of the series. Of course, you sometimes get to play as Saitama, the One Punch Man himself, which is quite funny as he indeed kills every opponent in one punch. Other than that, you’ll get bland dialogues, simple story missions, text messages from the headquarters and so on.
Graphics
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows looks pretty much like every other anime brawler released by Namco Bandai. This means that the game looks quite good, but also fairly empty. All character models respect the source material and are well translated for a digital experience with a proper layer of cel-shading. Sadly, the world you roam in feels abandoned, there are no cars or vehicles on the streets, you can see the inside of shops, but you can’t enter, etc. It would have been better to scale back on some of the ‘free roaming’ parts and just make the world feel more alive.
The battles are decently animated, but they also suffer from the Jump Force effect, where you see parts of rubble pop-up when slamming your opponent into the ground, only to see a clean and fixed floor when the effect disappears. It would have been better, and more believable, if you could actually damage your surroundings in a game that revolves around superheroes with crazy powers.
Sound
The sound design in A Hero Nobody Knows is quite decent. The music is upbeat, the sound effects are properly done, but the game could have used a bit more voice acting. Nonetheless, it’s a nice gesture that the Western version of the game also includes the original Japanese voices.
Gameplay
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows is a brawler that can be enjoyed both offline as well as online. Nonetheless, the game’s meat is the story, in which you unlock new characters and make your own personal hero. The latter is pretty much a Xenoverse experience where you create an avatar (with a lot fewer possibilities than the aforementioned) and get unleashed on the One Punch Man universe. You go from mission to mission, in order to get credits and work on your hero rank.
The missions are pretty much always you having to beat an enemy to a pulp, be it alone, or with allies that you can switch to in a tag-team kind of fashion. In some other missions you’ll have to lose, as you’re not strong enough, but get rewarded for surviving as long as possible. While others simply require you to survive. The overall formula is a bit repetitive, it’s only fun to be able to play with other heroes when doing missions.
You’ll gain credits and some status as a hero as you progress through the game, allowing you to buy new costumes, furniture for your one-room apartment or other items that help you in combat. It’s fun to collect, but other than that, the game’s drive is not that motivating. It’s fun that the developers added some extras, but the game feels somewhat as a clone of the game we mentioned in the intro, albeit with a lot fewer options and features.
The game’s controls are mediocre at best. You can perform combos with light punches and kicks and add some heavier punches and kicks to the equation. Other than that you have ‘killer-moves’ which are simply executed special moves. The game does not have a proper base as a fighting game, as there isn’t even the option to press a recovery button (or simply to get up quicker) when you get smacked to the floor. Everything feels rudimentary, which is never good for a game. You do have a few different stances, which alter the gameplay a bit, but in the end, you keep smashing the same button over and over again.
If the game motivates you long enough, there are a number of online features, allowing you to battle against other players, or even join events. It seems there will be some support for the game for the coming time, but it all depends on how quickly the community will start to die.
Conclusion
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows looks the part but is found lacking in its gameplay department. The overall game could have been much more than the stale and bland mess it currently is. This is one of those games that will give you a great evening, if you can score a copy in the sales bin. To recommend the game with its current price tag would not be justified. Only hardcore One Punch Man fans, or those wanting to dole around on the online features can have some fun buying the game at its current value.
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