Hallelujah, reward the anime gods! Hunter x Hunter Nen x Influence is a manga adaptation that’s not your common enviornment brawler, however as an alternative an precise preventing sport. Not solely that however writer Bushiroad has recruited Marvel vs Capcom 3 dev Eighting to rework the oft-on-hiatus shonen story right into a three-on-three brawler. Sensible!
Sadly, this effort simply doesn’t have the finances to mirror its ambition, which can retroactively justify Bandai Namco’s resolution to make each anime license an enviornment affair.
The preventing system is okay, with some attention-grabbing mechanics, just like the Nen stance pushback guard, and the flexibility to tag in teammates who robotically set off tremendous assaults.
However there are some exploits within the launch construct which imply you may lock enemies into infinite assault loops, and whereas the automated combo system will likely be appreciated by newcomers, it’s a bit overpowered for our tastes.
Every character has a singular transfer set, like Gon’s fishing rod and Razor’s volleyball spikes. There’s real selection to the roster too, from the short and nimble Killua to the tough Hisoka (this writer’s private favorite).
However with simply 16 characters at launch, the three-on-three gameplay format feels significantly stretched, and also you’ll be seeing lots of repeated faces even throughout a easy arcade run.
There’s not a lot to the sport both. The story mode, which glosses over the occasions from the anime, principally acts as an prolonged tutorial, and can take you lower than an hour or so to beat. Outdoors of that you just’re left with Time Assault, Combo Trials, and the Heavens Area, which is principally only a renamed survival mode.
You do unlock some profile customisation gadgets as you play, which you’ll be able to then take on-line. However the netcode, a minimum of in our expertise, has been poor to this point, with frequent connection drops and syncing points. The sport was delayed to implement rollback, however we haven’t had expertise throughout this assessment.
A few of this may be forgivable if the sport was being flogged at a finances worth, nevertheless it’s fairly costly for what you get. Clearly, it could nonetheless enchantment to Hunter x Hunter hardcores, however with titles like Road Fighter 6 and Responsible Gear Try already accessible, it’s troublesome to fathom why anybody else would select to play this.
