I thought it couldn’t get more bananas than Dragon Ball FighterZ, and then we got Jump Force. I thought that was the limit of Bandai Namco’s appetite for wild fighting game adaptations of over-the-top anime, completely forgetting about the existence of One Punch Man.
How Bandai Namco continues this bonkers trend after One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, I’ll leave that to the more animé-aware among us. The game was announced last week, and Bandai Namco followed that up from Anime Expo with this character trailer yesterday. It is outstanding, daaaaaaaaaaaaammittttt!
Forgive my easily amused nature, I don’t watch the show, I’ve only been ephemerally aware of it since the TV series got going about four years ago. Saitama faces a delightful rogues’ gallery of foes, among them Vaccine Man, Mosquito Girl, Carnage Kabuto and Deep Sea King. This is like when my best friend and I would get bored and start rolling random character sheets in the Marvel Super Heroes RPG, with the ne plus ultra of that being a hero who is bored by the fact his single punch has no worthy adversary.
We’re promised that the throwdowns in One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows will feature more than one titular punch — I guess? Depends on who you are talking about. This jittery trailer moves so fast it’s hard for me to tell, but it looks like One Punch Man just stands there getting rope-a-doped like Ali vs. Foreman until it’s time for Vaccine Man to catch the hand(s).
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows’ bizarre suitability for (or unsuitability to) the fighting game genre was perhaps summed up by this YouTube comment: “Imagine if they have patch notes and one reads: ‘Saitama nerfed.’”
Still no launch date, other than “coming soon,” for PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. It’s a Spike Chunsoft joint (they did Jump Force).
