I don’t think a game of this nature has every come around before. Sure, we’ve had the occasional indie fighter, but they have either been glorified tech demos, or sprite based affairs Ala Skullgirls. Making a three-dimensional fighter is no small task and Jae Lee Productions should be commended for putting together something that is pretty darn cool. With Kings of Kung Fu we get a really fun fighting game, and while we probably won’t be seeing it on the competitive fighting game scene, it is still worth your time.
Most fighting games, even the AAA ones, tend to place the story as secondary to the fighting. This is par for the course, but King of Kung Fu offers up a better than most take on why all these fighters are going toe-to-toe. The game features fourteen fighters that are each based on a real life fighter. While the rights to use their names would have probably bankrupted the studio, it’s still really cool being able to identify fighters like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Donnie Yen, Van Damme, Jackie Chan, and more. What’s even better is that each of these characters not only bear a striking resemblance to their real life version, but do a fair job mimicking their actual styles.
These fighters are all movie stunt-men within the game, so it only makes sense that a tournament is held withing the game by the mysterious Red-Ronin where the winner will earn a starring role in a huge upcoming feature film. Think of it like Enter The Dragon, but with a nicer ending and with a lot less death. It was fun seeing these “stunt-men” take each other on in very distinct locations that will have any fan of these characters giddy with nostalgia. The stages themselves also allow the fighters to interact with them, and while we don’t get anything along the lines of Injustice, or DoA and their multi-tier stages, portions are destructible so expect to see things go flying.
That being said, the fighting itself feels a little stiff for my taste. Each of the fourteen characters has a unique style and move-set, but there isn’t quite enough to really differentiate a number of them from each other, but this may be due to them being real people and not fanciful creatures/fighters. The game is far too new to rank each character on a tier level yet, but there are clear fighters that favor beginners and a few that will require some real work to get the most out of. Each fighter has a number of unique attacks (no grand special moves here), and each fighter pairs better against other certain styles which is nice. While fighting you’ll have the ability to pull off counter attacks, use blocks to defend (your hands and legs move to where attacks are striking and not just the head) and break combos, grapples to inflict massive damage, and a plethora of combos to unleash.
It all works okay, and it even works pretty darn well if you are only using a keyboard (some say even better with one), but I did run into a few nagging issues. There are points when you, or your opponent, begin a special move and you get “pulled” into position for it to finish. This happened more than I would have liked and it feels like something that can really be exploited. The game is in 3D, but you won’t be seeing next-gen level graphics here. Instead, everything is pretty basic, which works, and the game uses a vintage film grain filter over everything to make you feel like you are in an old martial arts film. It’s pretty cool, but many may find this distracting as well as running the risk of a headache here or there thanks to the motion blur the game implements.
Kings of Kung Fu offers up a number of gameplay modes to keep players interested beyond just the story. You can, of course, play the story-mode just as with any game of this nature, but you will also have a local multiplayer mode as well. I must really commend the developers for having all the fighters available from the outset so that they are available to everyone playing and you aren’t forced to spend hours unlocking them just to be able to play with your friends. On top of that you have a practice mode open to you so that you can practice your skills against any opponent you choose.
The gameplay itself is going to take you a bit of adjusting to get used to, but that sort of helps the game stand out from other fighters, whether intentional or not. In a lot of way Kings of Kung Fu reminds me a lot or the early Tekken series with a touch or Virtual Fighter in the way it plays, only faster. Kings of Kung Fu isn’t going to change the fighting scene, but it sure is a lot of fun, and if the developers keep making adjustments to the gameplay we could have something special on our hands.
If you are a fighting game fan and looking for a new fix, Kings of Kung Fu is for you and gets my recommendation. You can pick the game up on Steam and at the time of this writing the game is on sale for a mere $4.99 which is a steal for the amount of fun you are going to get from it.
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