Fighting game fans awaiting the upcoming One Punch Man game had a burning question: how exactly are you going to balance the monstrous strength and nigh-invincibility of the series’ protagonist Saitama? After all, he one-hit KOs nearly every enemy and has never taken damage to anything other than his clothes. To the credit of Bandai Namco Entertainment, it looks like they’ve managed to figure it out, and it looks pretty darn interesting.
A trailer has dropped that showcases exactly how Saitama is going to work in the One Punch Man game. Essentially, the other fighters on your team are going to have to face off against the big bad enemies while an on-screen countdown timer shows you when exactly Saitama will arrive. Landing combos or hitting perfect parries will speed up the arrival of the famous hero Caped Baldy. Your opponents are seriously tough, so fighters like Mumen Rider/Licenseless Rider will play more like a survival game than a fighting game in many respects.
ALSO: Gamescom Opening Night Live stories you might have missed
Everything changes when Saitama arrives. (After all, a hero always arrives late!) Once he’s on the scene, Saitama takes over and enters the battle. Judging by what we can see from the trailer, he takes no damage whatsoever despite the best attacks dished out by his opponent. He can then execute a punch which sends them flying off into the stratosphere, effectively ending the battle.
Aside from the reveal of this new system featuring Saitama, we also learned that three S -Rank Heroes have been revealed for the roster: Terrible Tornado/Tatsumaki, Silverfang, and Atomic Samurai.
One question that remains is whether or not it’s possible to win against the enemies when you’re playing one of the weaker heroes. Sure, Silverfang or Atomic Samurai could probably beat the Deep Sea King, but what about Genos or Mumen Rider? We do see their opponent taking damage in several clips, but it isn’t quite clear if that’s a battle that could actually be won. We also didn’t see any health bars in the reveals of the new S-Class heroes, so we can’t say just how much damage they do.
Balancing a hero that is essentially invincible was a difficult problem and it seems like Bandai Namco Entertainment has managed to come up with a creative solution to this challenge. There are many ways this could have been done, but they figured out something that’s believable and fits into the overall theme of the popular anime and manga. You can see this new system in the One Punch Man game in action by watching the trailer below.
