Up until recently, I thought SUPERHOT was the definitive John Wick style gaming experience that no other game would come close to matching. That was before One Finger Death Punch 2 casually strolled into my life and stabbed the previously mentioned game in the face with a pencil for kicking its dog.

Both of the games share a number of similarities despite being two completely different genres, pitting you against seemingly endless waves of crudely designed enemies – punching, kicking, shooting, and stabbing your way to victory. The biggest thing that sets them apart is the fact that SUPERHOT is a shooter at heart, and this is another entry in the two-button rhythm-based brawler niche that has gained popularity in the past few years.

The game starts off small, sending small waves of enemies that fall after single attacks, adding new varieties at regular intervals to keep the action fresh, working its way up to battles that’ll have kill counts reaching the hundreds (and a few into the thousands). Before long, you’ll be dispatching stick figures from all the colors of the rainbow, each with their own attack patterns or weapons that’ll you’ll need to memorize or risk hitting the wrong button, resulting in you being left open for attack. Once you take into account the complete lack of input delay and the fact you can adjust the game speed on the fly, even mid-battle, you’ll find one of the most addicting yet accessible brawlers on the market.

I spent the bulk of my time running through the story mode that spans multiple areas as well as incorporates some mission-specific goals, such as killing the enemies with a specific weapon type or avoiding specific areas of the map. Along the way, you’ll earn Revenge Tokens (a buff for some of the more taxing missions that allow you to recover health) or upgrades that add the occasional special move or passive buff to specific weapons or attacks. These not only make progressing through the 100+ level story mode less taxing, but they also carry over to the additional modes that are unlocked through standard gameplay.

Outside of the adventure mode, there is the option to take on endless towers that will last as long as your health bar does; a cooperative game mode; as well as some hidden modes that won’t present themselves until the story mode is completed. Overall, it’s a solid package that delivers in every area but the co-op mode, which missed the opportunity to allow you and a friend to relive all of the standout fight scenes from every buddy cop film on the market, jumping over each other and working in tandem to dispatch the bad guys in lieu of a tag team battle that is restricted to the endless mode. Between the fact that player one gets two lives opposed to player two’s single attempt as well as the emphasis on accuracy over button mashing, this made playing the title with my son a grueling affair.

While the gameplay is the game’s greatest strength, the presentation and optimization is a huge miss in a number of areas. I loved the majority of the visuals, which feature highly detailed backdrops and flashes of fully rendered images that call back to games from popular franchises, and I can respect the decision to utilize the barebones approach to the enemy design, but it often made determining where I was on the screen near impossible. While you can customize a small number of assets on your character, like giving him Spider-Man eyes, there really isn’t enough to set the models apart from one another. Additionally, I found the map navigation on later worlds to be more cumbersome than it should be. By far the biggest technical issue I ran into, which will be a game-breaker for some and a non-issue for others was the fact that a large number of the Xbox Achievements didn’t unlock at all or unlocked super late, despite me having cleared the requirement and then some.

One Finger Death Punch 2 doesn’t reinvent the wheel or set a new standard for the brawler genre, but it brings a lot to the table at a lower than average price point. Its tight controls, a staggering amount of content, and an addicting gameplay loop make up for the minor visual and performance issues.

9 out of 10

Pros

• Accessible Yet Addicting Gameplay
• A Wealth of Content
• Tight, Responsive Controls
• Upgrades Galore

Cons

• Some Minor Bugs
• Lack of Customization
• Mediocre Co-op

One Finger Death Punch 2 was developed and published by Silverdollar Games. It launched on NS, PC, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on X1. For more on One Finger Death Punch 2, check out the game’s official site.

 

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