Without a doubt, the wacky world of One Punch Man Saitama has been one of the most popular anime / manga of today for several years. Not surprisingly, the story of the hero, who can defeat every opponent with just one hit, is honored with his own video game. How well such an overpowering character integrates into a fighting game and what the game by developer Spike Chunsoft (Jump Force) has to offer apart from the bizarre template, can be found here.
For those who do not know it yet: One Punch Man is a Japanese web comic series that has been running since 2009, which has also been and still is being implemented as an anime. The story of a socially awkward hero who is so devastatingly strong that he sends every enemy into nirvana with just one blow has been enjoying great popularity for some time, although the plot is actually just a collection of satirical figures that lead certain idiosyncrasies of successful anime to absurdity.
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With One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, the easy-going and unashamedly rumbling story about the bald superhero Saitama now gets its own video game implementation, which, how could it be otherwise, is a classic fighting game, but with two Facets that distinguish it from other representatives of this genre. On the one hand, there are the random events during a fight, such as intervening figures, falling spaceship parts or exploding meteorites, which affect both parties and can tip the scales in short arguments.
And on the other hand, the most important part of the game: The heroes who help you and join your fight as soon as they have reached the battlefield. The system behind it stipulates that you have to hold out against overpowering opponents until a high-ranking hero has reached your side and you can switch on for the fight. Especially when you fight an invincible boss and Saitama, the one punch man personally, reaches him, the satisfaction of tearing the enemy to pieces with just one blow is quite great.
Always in the middle of you-know-where
Apart from that, there is not much positive to say about One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, since the developers have not used the strengths of the topic sufficiently. Instead of being guided by the success of Dragon Ball FighterZ and similar representatives, who have focused fully on the fights, they are treated almost neglectfully in A Hero Nobody Knows and largely fall behind. Curiously, the focus is on unnecessarily complex and largely redundant RPG elements that cost more time than they bring benefits.
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At the beginning you create your own hero, who can then roughly attend the events of the first season of One Punch Man. You are advised of all kinds of heroes, whom you have to prove yourself and who reward you with an increasing sympathy bar and new techniques. And the same number of bad guys, who are either clones of well-known characters and usually don't offer much resistance or who are bosses that you keep going until someone comes to rescue your very least.
If you have successfully boxed the beetle of the umpteenth clone of Piccolo or have avoided the blows of the King of the Fishmen long enough, you will receive experience points, which in turn will be used to make your figure stronger. If you have problems with an opponent, it usually helps more by simply thrashing three to four underlings and then improving your own values than trying to improve yourself in the game. The controls in the fights are so immature that more damage can be achieved with arbitrary button mashing over longer passages than with a good combination of dodging, blocking and countering.
In broad terms, that's all that awaits you in One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows. At least apart from nonsensical optional tasks, which often consist of carrying objects 20 meters across the street or simply moving from person A to person B. For this, the game rewards you continuously, either in the form of trophies / successes that are available here for almost everything, or through even more optional nonsense, which, if you pay attention to them, will not make the game better, but eat a lot of times.
Little variety
Since the game only allows you to move forward in history when you have reached a certain rank, you unfortunately have to fight against constantly repeating character models that only differ in their skin color and almost always have the same repeating palette of moves , Even the nerves of the most stubborn fans of the template are put to the test by forced repetitive side missions and pure enemy farming. Players who do not yet know One Punch Man should lose their enthusiasm after just a few minutes.
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The battles themselves are still largely successful, even if they often do not require much skill. A good part of your enemies can be beaten with the same combo and only very few opponents require thinking around the corner or even a tactic. Especially if you have activated the fighting techniques of a cyborg or a psychic for your own character, you will no longer encounter much resistance and if you do, then only because the game requires you to use Saitama.
Just like in Jump Force, A Hero Nobody Knows is the Versus mode that brings the real fun. Here it is actually worth combining different techniques to achieve the best possible results. In addition, a balanced team against other players is often necessary to be able to hope for a victory at all. It is particularly exciting that Saitama was built into this mode without breaking the classic 3vs3 principle. If you decide to include the One Punch Man in your team, you have to wait until it reaches the battlefield. Ultimately, this means that you are at a disadvantage in a regular fight for a significant period of time.
However, the nice idea gets boring after just a few fights, as it offers little variety, which during our test phase usually meant that the players left Saitama behind and preferred to fill up their team with one of the other 20 unlockable characters.
Technically below average
Spike Chunsoft's version of One Punch Man is the opposite of a real eye-catcher. Muddy textures, rough edges and choppy motion animations are part of everyday life here. The sound is even worse. Often, audio files from NPCs are far too loud or too quiet, while the boring music composition invites you to sleep.
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows will be available on February 28, 2020.
There are also sharp drops in the FPS, at least on the PS4 Pro. These usually take place outside of matches, both in online and offline mode, but occasionally also in online battles, especially when a hero reaches the battlefield or a random event is triggered. In these cases, the movements of the fighters are reduced to slow motion, which is not necessarily good for fun.
