This is the kung fu fighting game that garnered a great deal of attention upon release but also scared many off due to its high difficulty and aging mechanic. I count myself among those who were intimidated and so stayed away. But then Epic gave it away for free so I was out of excuses. It took a great deal of focused practice but I did finally beat the game even if I had to cheese the hell out of the bosses so I’m here to report my verdict.

This is a classic kung fu game so it has a classic story to match. Years ago, Yang gathers his companions to attack the martial arts school of his former master and kills him. One of the companions, the mute Fajar, also slits the throat of the master’s child with a machete. But the child survives due to the power of the family’s talisman. After training for eight years, the now young adult child embarks on a bloody quest for revenge. The player takes on the role of the child to hunt down each of the killers one by one. These are, in order, Fajar the botanist, in his drug den and laboratory; Sean who runs his own martial arts school and fight club; Kuroki, who owns an art gallery; Jinfeng, now head of a large corporation in her office tower, and finally Yang himself in his meditation sanctuary and retreat. There are no side quests so this is nothing more nor less than a straightforward, linear beat them up from the beginning to the end.

The game is short enough that a skilled player could probably run through the whole thing in about an hour even without shortcuts. A beginning player however will likely have to fight through the same areas again and again to learn the ins and outs and unlock the pieces of lore scattered all around. There will be every permutation possible of the fights you expect in a typical kung fu movie, two or three enemies at a time in a small area, mini-bosses, or entire swarms of them in a large, open area. At the end of every level, you confront the boss who will have two distinct phases. You can also use up to three shrines in each area which fully heal you and allow you to purchase upgrades and unlock skills, provided you meet the requirements. In subsequent run throughs, you can often shorten your path to the boss as you use keys and such to unlock doors and elevators. But this also means skipping the shrine upgrades.

As you might expect in such a highly regarded fighting game, there is a vast assortment of moves available. But all of them are real moves that a skilled martial artist in the real world might be able to pull off and there are no superpowers. Naturally the game discourages wild button-mashing as the enemies are capable of blocking, avoiding and even parrying your attacks. You can also pick up weapons or throw objects present in the environment to even the odds against a crowd. Kicking a loose brick on the ground at someone’s head feels like something right out of a kung fu film. In a pinch you can use focus attacks which are effective on even bosses. True masters of the game will realize that even attacks can be used as a defense. For example ducking down to perform a crotch punch avoids high attacks.

Your character is very fragile and can die in just a few solid hits. The famous revival mechanic means that you can choose to return to life at the cost of aging and you hit the limit at age 70. But note that the penalty stacks. If you die several times in quick succession, you age a lot more. This means it’s okay to die once or twice to get past a particularly difficult spot but more than that will likely mean that you age too quickly to get to the end of the game. Still, you can always replay levels to try to finish it at an earlier age, perhaps using shortcuts so you won’t have to fight through so many enemies. All this means that the game was considered too unforgiving to many players upon release. Since then however updates have added a better training mode which allows you to fight any enemy you have already beaten, including even bosses. This makes it much easier to practice particular strategies for fighting them efficiently.

These mechanics result in combat that is every bit as satisfying and versatile as advertised. It’s scary at first when the game throws you into a roomful of enemies, all of who will try to hit you, get in your way or throw things at you. But it is possible with experience to learn proper spacing, the enemies’ movesets, and exploit your own moves and objects in the environment to control the crowd. You have multiple defensive options at your disposal with the simple block being sufficient for almost all attacks though it won’t last long. Bosses are extremely scary as they can be so fast and their movesets so different. With some experience though, I found that only two out of the five total bosses to be truly difficult, either because they’re so fast or because it’s so hard to find opportunities to hurt them. So the final boss in particular, I had to resort to cheese tactics, getting him to perform the same attack over and over again that I was confident I could defend against.

This is still a game that calls for patience and a willingness to practice the same things over and over again. It’s more approachable now that it was at launch but it’s not for everyone. It’s such a pure fighting game that the levels don’t even resemble real physical spaces. Instead, the portrayal of the protagonist’s quest for vengeance feels an exploration of the psyche and the sins of the past. There are also cinematic touches in the form of dramatic lighting changes which look nice but also makes it difficult to see what is going on in the middle of combat. Finally, remember when I said it doesn’t reward mashing the attack button? Unfortunately it does seem to reward mashing the block button. Some attacks are just too fast to deal with. I actually broke the button on my game controller playing this.

Anyway I’m really glad I did play this but this is about as difficult an action game as I can tackle these days. Watching videos on YouTube showing the experts effortlessly mowing through enemies has been eye-opening, showing just how high the skill ceiling is. Some of them can create vulnerabilities in the bosses that I never even imagined was possible. So yeah, this is likely the best realistic martial arts game on the market and it’s admirable that they even made it just the right length without unnecessary padding. High recommended if you have the reflexes to cope with it.