ONE PUNCH MAN: A HERO NOBODY KNOWS is a Game Fans Will Love
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows recently launched on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Bandai Namco has been kind enough to send me a copy of the game on PC and I absolutely love it. It really does help you immerse yourself in the world and feel like a part of this crazy society full of heroes.
A Hero Nobody Knows has you create your own hero in the world of One Punch Man and then you climb up the ladder of the Hero Association starting as a C-class hero. One thing that is missing is a rank within the classes. I’m sure it’s to not mess with any of the heroes from the show as you’ll periodically run into them and even help them.
I now want to talk about character creation. It’s very simple and it works fine, but there are some weird things. For instance, you can equip a birthday hat to your elbow or a face mask to the top of your head and it’s just awkward. Also, as you might expect, you don’t start with too many options but over time you’ll be able to buy some. My final note is that when you start the game the voices will all be in English, but in settings you can change it to Japanese and then you can edit your hero later to check which Japanese voice you want (if that’s your thing). After creating your character, you’ll have to give them a name and then a Hero name. It’s pretty fun.
In the game, you’ll go around completing quests in an attempt to gain fame throughout the city and even climbing the ranks of the Hero Association. Most of the quests involve some kind of fight, but sometimes there are things like fetch quests thrown in. The game is a 3v3 fighting game and so you’ll often find a random hero will join you in a fight, but not always. One interesting thing here is that you don’t always start with the other hero(es) available at the start of the fight, but rather they’re running to the fight for a while before you can use them. I actually really like this mechanic and feel it gives a fresh new spin on this game.
You start the game as a basic hand-to-hand combat style, but as you progress through the game you’ll unlock more styles including ones that use weapons like rapiers and baseball bats. You then level up each style to allow the use of additional powerful moves and combos. You can also level up different stats as you progress to make your hero stronger and fit your play style a bit more.
One thing to be aware of is that it takes a while to be able to access the online features of this game. You do have to play through the first several missions before you can access the online world where other players are in the world with you (many of them looking like clones of famous heroes including Saitama). This is also when you’ll be able to challenge people stronger than you or access the VS menu through the Hero Association. In VS battles you can use any of the heroes you’ve unlocked and if the rules allow, you can use Saitama who takes his sweet time to show up, but is able to end things with one punch!
One of my biggest problems with the game is that I feel like in fights characters are on the ground/hands and knees for too long after being knocked down. When they’re in this state, characters are impervious to damage. This is very different from other games and it really limits combo potentials which some people I’m sure will be fine with, but it can be really annoying as you go to set up using one of your power moves but they get knocked down and so your move does nothing.
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows is a fantastic game if you’re a fan of the anime and worth picking up. The 3v3 mechanics are familiar, but have a bit of novelty thrown in to keep things a little fresh.
