Baki Hanma: Blood Arena review

Part of one of the best-selling manga series of all time, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Baki Hanma has also proved a success over on Netflix. What is surprising, however, is that there’s been few video games based on it. Developer Purple Tree is making a move to correct that, however, with its new fighting game Baki Hanma: Blood Arena. This isn’t a fighting game in the vein of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat though. Instead, it takes inspiration from Super Punch-Out!! more than anything.

Considering Purple Tree is the developer of Thunder Ray, another Super Punch-Out!! inspired title, however, it’s perhaps to be expected. But does it lead to Baki Hanma: Blood Arena being a good, enjoyable game? Unfortunately not. Jump into this brief but ultra-violent title and chances are the only thing you’ll encounter is disappointment and frustration.

As soon as you reach the game’s title screen, chances are you’ll start to get a little worried about what you’ve let yourself in for. You see, this is a fighting game that doesn’t even have a training mode or an obvious tutorial, and venturing into the options menu presents you with nothing toggleable of substance. So, faced with either tackling a challenging-sounding Survival Arena mode, or the Underground Tournament, you’ll probably choose the latter. It’s only then, once you’re up against your first opponent, that you’ll get a quick introduction to the game’s mechanics.

Thankfully, they’re simple: with you taking control of Baki, who’s always at the bottom of the screen, you can perform left and right body shots as well as left and right head shots with the face buttons. The trigger buttons, meanwhile, can be held to power up charged attacks. Land enough hits to fill a meter at the bottom left of the screen and you can press both triggers at the same time to unleash a powerful – and flashy – special attack.

You can’t win in Baki Hanma: Blood Arena just by going on the offensive, though; you also need to avoid your enemy’s attacks or at least try to block them. Press down on the left analogue stick or d-pad and you can duck, while pressing left or right dodges to the appropriate side. Press up and you’ll block. It all sounds rather simple, right? And it is, in theory. In practice, though, it’s all thrown into disarray by the fact that it’s so hard to work out what you should do to avoid some attacks.

Sometimes it’s easy to see that you need to dodge to the right to avoid a kick coming from the left. But many of the attacks your opponents perform as you progress through Baki Hanma: Blood Arena are much harder to read. Even worse, I swear some of them are pretty much unavoidable. And this is the type of game where you need to hit your opponent ten times to cause as much damage as they do to you in just one hit.

But even beyond Baki Hanma: Blood Arena feeling unfair, even when it’s at its best, it’s dull as dishwater. The core gameplay here simply has you mashing buttons as fast as you can to land a flurry of blows on your opponent, watching for them to retaliate so you can take the appropriate defensive action. Rinse and repeat until either you or your opponent has been knocked out. If you’re victorious you can then tackle the next opponent, with just a bit of text dialogue in between to progress the uninteresting story. It’s as basic as can be.

Once you’ve completed Underground Tournament mode, or just fancy a change, Survival Arena lets you see how many opponents you can defeat in a row, but that’s about it. The title screen does indicate that you will be able to take on opponents from the Death Row Convicts Saga in the future, though, but it’s unlikely to make Baki Hanma: Blood Arena any more enjoyable.

Needless to say, it’s impossible to recommend Baki Hanma: Blood Arena unless you’re a massive fan of the franchise and you’ve also got a ton of patience. Especially so at full price. It looks quite nice, but that’s about as complimentary as I can be about it. In terms of gameplay it’s both dull and frustrating, and when it comes to content and features it’s simply lacking.