At the Steam Next Fest, there are again some demos of upcoming games. MeinMMO editor Nikolas Hernes has grabbed a short demo of one of his favorite anime and was pleasantly surprised by the genre.
Which anime is it about? The Grappler Baki series by manga artist Keisuke Itagaki can be summarized quite easily: Baki wants to defeat his father Yujiro and become the strongest fighter in the world. Along the way, he meets other fighters, fights, or watches others fight.
It’s as absurd as it is brutal, and I really enjoy it. In every fight, there are explanations of fighting techniques that are so crazy that you just have to laugh. The impact of the fights can convince, and that also applies to the Netflix series, which unfortunately is somewhat less animated.
When I was looking for exciting demos for the Steam Next Fest, I had to download Baki Hanma: Blood Arena right away, and surprisingly it’s not a classic fighting game. It is inspired by an old Nintendo classic, which I liked quite a bit.
Who remembers Punch-Out?
What is the demo of the game like? To my great surprise, Baki Hanma: Blood Arena is not a classic fighting game like Street Fighter or Tekken. The game is based on the Nintendo classic Punch-Out. The camera is behind the character, and you can punch with your left and right fists and dodge in different directions with the stick or arrow keys.
In the fight, you also charge a special meter that executes a strong attack with the appropriate animation. If you or your opponent has no life left, it’s still not over. First, a count is done, and if you then quickly press the attack button, you can get up again. But the opponent can also get up.
In the fight itself, you have to react to your opponent and learn the attacks to dodge perfectly. It’s not particularly lavishly animated, but it helps with visibility in combat, so I actually had no problems with it. The art style is heavily inspired by the Netflix series that started in 2018.
The style is further supported by occasional reactions from other characters from the series, which fits perfectly with the manga and anime series.
As a fan of the series, I felt right at home. You can already see familiar characters in the demo, and the short demo was definitely fun. The first fight played solidly, even though you have to get used to the gameplay. Despite the reduced animations, the flair of the fights was well captured.
The gameplay could also be interesting for non-fans, especially if you want to play a somewhat different fighter
. However, you should have an affinity for absurd anime fights.
After the first fight, you get a little sneak peek at other mechanics, and they already promise that the game will certainly want to offer variety. For example, an attack from the opponent to the eyes prevented you from seeing to the left.
It remains to be seen if the game will achieve this in the final version. As a small title for in-between, I will definitely keep an eye on the game.
Until June 16 at 7:00 PM, the Steam Next Fest is still running, and besides Blood Arena, there are many other demos that you can try. A less brutal demo can be found here: The predecessor of a demo on Steam made a hype genre appealing to me, although I despise it
