‘HUNTERxHUNTER NENxIMPACT’ – PC Review
HUNTERxHUNTER NENxIMPACT, developed by Bushiroad Games, published by Bushiroad Inc., and Arc System Works, is a fighting game loosely based on the popular anime HUNTERxHUNTER (HxH). Visually appealing, the character designs and alternate costumes are true to the anime. The ultimate arts inspire nostalgia. Gameplay is responsive, one of the smoothest fighting games I have ever played, and not difficult to learn.
NENxIMPACT brings a fun three vs three twist to the fighting game genre, and more than one way to swap out. Utilizing the second and third characters becomes an integral part of the player’s skill set to compete. You can switch regularly without any flare, or use a nen arts switch to bring out the next character in style, dealing damage and saving the last character from being knocked out. Additionally, you can force the opponent’s characters to switch with a special move. These are all neat mechanics the player can employ, but the roster only provides 16 characters to choose from. Between you and an opponent using 6 characters all together, you will run into duplicates all the time. All 16 characters are unlocked from the beginning, which is a missing incentive to play any other modes. Additional characters are planned to be released via battlepass. The anime boasts a multitude of characters, and releasing them all through a battlepass could be costly to consumers.
Disappointment is the word that comes to mind for the amount I paid to own this game as a fan of the HxH anime and manga. With past fighting games based on anime, we received rich story/arcade modes or missions that let us experience the action, drama, and suspense all over again. If you are looking for that in NENxIMPACT, you will also be disappointed. There are 19 stages to cover almost 150 episodes. The entire story is presented through Japanese only voice acting, English subtitles, and still images. Each stage does have three missions to pass to achieve an S rank if you’re looking for a slight challenge. There was one I struggled with but eventually cleared it after several attempts. I was able to finish the story mode within three hours (too long to refund on Steam), and some have done it in even less. The most frustrating part of story mode is that focus deviates from the main character. Most of the story mode revolves around a controversial secondary character more than Gon or Killua. Without spoilers, the main character’s primary reason for becoming a hunter isn’t even resolved in the story given to us in NENxIMPACT.
There are more than a handful of single player mode options available. Arcade mode is a sequence of 8 random battles against CPUs, which is such a missed opportunity. This mode could have been used to tell the story of each character that wasn’t mentioned in Story mode, which is most of them. The player earns points across the matches, and the score determines what rewards are earned. Losing at any stage means all points are wiped out, but you can retry that stage and continue onward.
Time Attack keeps track of how long it takes you to defeat 5 stages across 3 courses (A, B, and C). This mode isn’t about having the highest score, just hunt aka defeat the opponents as fast as possible. The battles are predetermined configurations of characters, and challenging from the start. When you fail, you start over from the beginning. Then there’s Combo Trial, a neat mode that gives the player an objective to complete, ranging from simple to complex.
Heavens Arena is my personal favorite. Starting from floor 1 and climbing all the way to floor 300, players battle CPU opponents to become the Floor Master. Totalling 31 stages in all, the player earns fight money from each battle which is spent to recover HP. The amount of HP you have at the end of the battle is the amount carried over into the next. After floor 50, the player can spend fight money to recover HP. Doing so is costly, so if you can’t wait for the floor with the discounted cost, be sparing but don’t take risks. Although it’s not specifically stated, the battle difficulty steadily increases. This mode can be interrupted, saving your place to come back later. Defeat means starting over from floor 1. If there was any change I would make to Heavens Arena mode, it would be to make it one vs one so that it was more accurate to the anime. And let me start over from a higher floor please.
Finally, Battle Olympia is 8 stages with extreme difficulty CPUs and only unlocks after completing Heavens Arena. Each battle starts the player at full health, but one failure and you go back to the beginning. Absolutely unforgiving, and a reason for me to not worry about unlocking it.
As I mentioned, these modes provide rewards based on points, and these rewards come in the form of Greed Island cards to progressively fill out a binder, player Titles and player Icons. Player Icons is where you’ll find the characters not mentioned in the story mode. I would have liked to see a short description of the character, since most of them are never mentioned or seen in story mode.
It took a while to write this review, so most of you are probably aware that NENxIMPACT’s netcode isn’t great. Online mode features ranked online battles, and unranked lobbies. From the beginning, trying to find a room was a waste of time. I checked the day the game was released, and only found one. Once battle initiated in either ranked or unranked, I usually lost connection. My experience with playing online is extremely poor.
It hurts to write this review. For a complex story I enjoyed from start to finish, based entirely around fighting, fans deserved a game that honored the anime. My expectations of NENxIMPACT started with the price tag of $59.99 ($74.99 for deluxe edition). The same price tag you would see on release of other fighting games representing popular anime franchises, but delivers much less. The single player modes are mostly challenging, but unforgiving toward casual players. The fighting is smooth, fun, and easy to learn, but where is the content? Where is the impressive online mode full of other players who love this anime as much as I do? But thanks for letting me use “Indoor Fish” outside.
