One Strike

Hey there! I want to mention this right away befor getting into the meat: I have the Switch-Version of this game, and there I ,as of now, have at least 30 HOURS of In-Game-Time. YES, 30 HOURS. I, in fact, held a Tournament with some friends and uploaded the whole thing on YouTube! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj5vX4-TmWk&list=PLvotN0kFDmT15YJajdSxn5vXrRuc8wSZf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- General Info: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay: Without Further ado: This game is a gem. I've gotten it for I think 2€ on sale, and I don't regret any cent spend on this game. One Strike is a charming Retro-Themed 4-Button-Fighting-Game. No Jumps, No Cross-Ups, No Supers, No Special-Moves, No Team-Shenanigans. Pure 1 on 1 Weaponbased Combat. And One Strike delievers on that like nothing! Yes, yes, the Game has a really tight Theming and Identity, if you do not like Fighting Games that are "basic" and don't allow for hours of Training-Mode-Sweating, this won't be for you. If you want to put time into learning extremely long combos or crazy Knockdown-Set-Ups like most modern Fightinggames want you to, you won't like this game. If you like the more strategic and more methodical gameplay-aspect of Fightinggames, you will like One Strike. With only 1 Point of Health to spare, meaning that each and every attack landed by your opponent will kill you, you have to be more thoughtfull about positioning, attacking and the timing of your block. Yes, I wrote timing of you block. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Controls: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The game is played in a simple matter: You get an Attack-Button, a Block-Button, a Left-Dash and a Right-Dash-Button, plus moving Forward and Backward with the D-Pad / Control-Stick. You are not able to "hold" your guard, whenever you press block, your character will block by any means, just to leave themselves vulnerable afterwards. The same goes with attacks: Pressing the Attack-Button will also leave you quite vulnerable, if you've missed your opponent that is! The Dashes are mostly for Positioning, Yet the Developer decided to use the Dashes to give Certain Characters additional Attacks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Theming, Graphics and Music: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay: I HAVE to mention this right now: The music is great. You cannot believe how often I've played against good friends of mine, moving / vibing to the backgroundmusic and having a great feeling. The music brings a lot of hype and tension to the game, feels very distinct from stage to stage and just feeds into the overall theming of Medieval Fantasy Japan. The locations you will fight over your life also range from a wide variety, from a Bridge inside of a Village with Viewers in the Background to a Seaside-Stone-Cliff, everything is there and fits perfectly. The graphics are lovely to look at, reminding of the old SNES-Fighting-Games and having TONS of charm, if you are into it, of course. Tho since One Strike is definitley younger than the mentioned 16-Bit-Console, all the animations One Strike has to Over are Smooth, very Detailed and extremely fluent. Also: The character-select-screen shows Paintings of your Character, which is really charming, and while it doesn't really fit into the retro-aspect that well in my opinion, still makes for a better vieweing of the character you will maybe play as, since the Pixel-Art-Sprites do not show many facial features. In-Fact, the Sprites are Faceless. And I, personally, have come to really like that design, since you will be able to still feel the emotions of each character within their Attack-,Dash- and Defend-Animations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Character-Diversity: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, with 1 Button for Attacks, 1 Button already dedicated for Blocking and 2 Dash-Buttons, the Characters CANNOT be that different from each other, right? WRONG! Even without the "Rise of the Dragons"-DLC, the initial Roster of 7 Characters contains different Fightinggame-Archetpypes. From more Zoning-Based Characters such as Hangaku to the defensive Walls like Soujirou but also the Jack-of-All-Trades, in this case Kenji, are in this game. Now, the Controls are Universal, yes, BUT: One Strikes Roster features characters that trade their Forward-Dash for another Special-Attack (Oni), their Block for a quick close-ranged Attack (Hangaku) or even, in case of Dragon, their Block for the ability to become invisible. The characters feel very distinct from one another, and most of them, if not all, are surprisingly recognizable! I won't be going over all the characters, but you can trust me, and probably each other person who has played One-Strike for more than 10 minutes, that the characters feel very different and have different Strengths and Weaknesses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gamemodes: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Single-Player: Now, the Single-Player features 1 mode abscent from multiplayer: "The Only Life" Where you basically want to defeat all Characters while only having one life.Getting hit once means you have to restart the Mode, not unlike any other Fighting-Games' Survival-Mode. Arcade, Tournament and Team-Duel are also Playable in Single-Player, just against computercontrolled Opponents. Multiplayer: Arcade: Each Player chooses a Character, gets 5 life and the first Person to lose all of them, loses the game. Team Duel: Each Player chooses a Team of 3 different Characters, then orders them to their liking and proceeds to play against the other Players' Team. There are no "Supports" or Tag-in-Mechanics, the only difference to Arcade is that each character has exactly one life, and once taken out, cannot be played anymore. Thus leaving the next-chosen Character to take down the opposing team. Once your 3rd Character gets hit, you have lost the Team Duel. Tournament: Compete in a Single-Elimination-Tournament to become the Champ! I have to confess, this Mode is the Mode I've played the least amount, so I might rework this part later on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- One Strike has become a Party-Staple amongst me and my friends. The game won't be the top of the conversation that often, but once it is, it is with a lot of confidence and great memories. I personally just can recommend you this game, if you have the people to play it with, if you have opportunities to just play and enjoy this game for like 1 hour once in a while. I cannot see myself grinding this games single-player, but I am sure down for a nice First-to-2 in Arcade-Mode when asked for.