Kick ass passively.
Way of the Passive Fist is a Beat 'em Up developed by Household Games. Taking place on Zircon V, a planet too close to the sun, you play as The Wanderer, a mysterious blue-haired individual wearing a gas mask and a shawl hiding a bionic arm. The Wanderer is skilled in the martial art known as the Way of the Passive Fist.
One morning after defeating a large man with a motorcycle wheel for an arm named Breen, they note that the Mad Scientist Doctor Dyson is back at it again, and journeys across the deserted lands of Zircon V to stop his plans once and for all.
Heavily inspired by 90s Beat em ups like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, you must parry, dodge, and counter your way through sun worshiping fanatics, gangs, cyborgs, plant monsters, and more using the Way of the Passive Fist, tiring them out to knock them down with ease.
The game was initially released digitally on March 6, 2018 for Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox ONE. On April 11, 2019 it got a digital release for the Nintendo Switch as well.
Way of the Passive Fist contains examples of the following tropes:
- Anime Hair: The Wanderer has a bright blue sidecut mohawk.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: According to
developer Household Games, the Wanderer is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. [1]
- The Apunkalypse: Bad Biker Breen plays this very straight.
- Beat 'em Up: Though it arguably plays more like a Rhythm Game of sorts where you must recognize enemy attack patterns and counter them accordingly to tire them out and knock them over with ease or, in the case of cyborg/robot enemies and bosses that can't be tired out, build up a high enough combo to perform a Limit Break to defeat them.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Believe it or not, "Parry" does not translate to Portuguese as "Papagaio" (Parrot). Even worse is that action pop-ups are not translated from English to any other language, so then you can't see "PAPAGAIO" popping out of the Wanderer on every normal parry.
- Bookends: Early in New Dawn, you fight a Degraded Boss version of Breen. The cloaked figure behind the whole incident fought at the final stage... is also Breen."...No more DYSON!"
- Boring, but Practical: Dodging takes more recovery frames and gives half the score of a perfect parry, but it still builds up combo points even on Master difficulty, making it the more consistent choice for most enemies including the grapplers and robot Wanderer clones.
- Boss-Only Level: Stage 9 is very long and features the entire normal enemy cast, so then the final battle with Dyson gets its own level to give players a break.
- Catch and Return: Some enemies throw projectiles like knives and bombs at the Wanderer, who can catch it and throw it right back at them.
- Checkpoint Starvation: The stages usually place a checkpoint for every 2 arenas, and some encounters are quite long to beat. The game being merciful and placing one checkpoint per encounter is often an indicator of just how tough the next one is.
- Combat Tentacles: Dyson has the ability to make metal tentacles erupt from the ground to attack or trap The Wanderer in his boss battle.
- Combos: Encouraged, as long combos raise your score and grant better rankings for each enemy encounter. Taking damage or whiffing any action will reset the counter.
- Continuing is Painful:
- Dying often means getting set two encounters back.
- Both New Dawn and Passiverse modes have no continue feature. New Dawn gives you 5 lives and lets you set the difficulty to a minimum, but Passiverse has no lives and forces the difficulty to Master level.
- Create Your Own Hero: As the Wanderer encounters Dyson's human experimentation labs towards the end, the narration notes the Wanderer themself had been turned into a cyborg by the villain in this place.
- Cyborg: The Wanderer is one with their bionic arm, as well as Breen with his motorcycle wheel arm. You encounter several other cyborgs later on as well. Dyson is revealed to be a very powerful one as well.
- Death World: Zircon V was said to be dangerous to colonize due to being too close to sun, but people foolishly settled there anyway. The sunlight is so strong in the noon that it's said to be a death sentence unless you find cover. Dyson's master plan is to convert all of humanity into cyborgs that can withstand the sun.
- Desert Punk: Justified as Zircon V is very close to the sun.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: New Dawn mode involves a group of cloaked figures starting up trouble in the post-apocalypse. This whole premise is then flushed until the very end, until it turns out the leader was Breen, the first boss in the game, for some reason.
- Dumb Muscle: Breen, a brutish-looking giant biker, is met while he's disdainfully holding the tip of a book and dropping it. He then shouts "...No more BOOKS!" before fighting the Wanderer.
- Evil Knockoff: The final stage of New Dawn features unexplained clones of the protagonist as elite mooks. They can spam the punch and grab specials over and over and don't get tired.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Dyson aims to evolve humanity by turning them all into cyborgs.
- Excuse Plot: Even compared to the simple main story, New Dawn teases a continuation that turns out to be merely a joke. It only has two cutscenes and doesn't explain anything. Then the player is told to play Passiverse mode, which outright has no plot and ends on a silly congratulations message.
- Extended Gameplay: Clearing the Story mode unlocks New Dawn and Passiverse. The first is a continuation to the story with palette-swapped bosses and the latter is a gauntlet of random levels.
- Flunky Boss: Most bosses in the game are backed up by two mooks, which is helpful for building up combos for the special moves.
- Gameplay Grading: By scoring a lot of points, the player can earn silver and gold medals for each encounter. This is the only thing that grants experience points, which encourages replaying previous levels to unlock the two super moves and health upgrades as soon as possible. To keep the player from just milking combos and points from certain enemies, a bonus for finishing fights quickly is also available.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Wanderer can catch and return projectiles, but one particular cyborg who uses a boomerang that arcs from above cannot be defeated like this because projectiles cannot be aimed once caught.
- Improbable Weapon User: Bad Biker Breen's Motorcycle wheel arm. He can kick up sand with it creating a temporary sandstorm, and launch it across the ground at The Wanderer.
- "Instant Death" Radius: The Gardener boss has a mechanical scorpion tail that automatically hits the Wanderer if they get too close, forcing the Wanderer to build combo off the summoned mutated plants instead to unleash their Area of Effect specials. The New Dawn variant of the Gardener ups the difficulty simply by making him move around the map faster.
- "Just Frame" Bonus: Perfect parries or dodges are worth more points and slighty damage bosses. One difficulty setting makes it so they are required to gain combos at all.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The gardener boss wants the world to usher in an era led by plant monsters. The canister on his back shatters when he's defeated and its liquid painfully mutates him into a plant as the Wanderer leaves.
- Limit Break: Parrying, dodging, or countering enough enemy attacks in succession will build up a combo, letting The Wanderer perform a super punch, grapple, or gravity well attack with their bionic arm depending on how high the combo is. This is crucial for defeating bosses and later, enemies that can't just be tired out. Also, for scoring purposes they are better used as finishers.
- Martial Pacifist: The Wanderer of course, as their only means of offense is knocking tired enemies down and returning projectiles. He does have super moves and defeated enemies all sink dead into the sand, mind you.
- Mook Chivalry: Most enemies will take turns attacking one at a time, but sometimes you'll have to deal with hazards and bosses trying to catch you unaware. You can often manipulate who'll attack you next, which is necessary when the invincible shadow enemies are around.
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Nintendo Hard: The Story mode on normal difficulty onwards demands good reflexes and pattern memorization. New Dawn empowers enemies and puts a limit of 5 lives on playthroughs. Passiverse is locked at maximum difficulty with the Wanderer starting at level 1 and a single attempt is allowed for each run. - Notice This: Checkpoints have an icon near them telling players they can be activated with the special attack button. However, item containers on the background don't have the icon despite their bright colors and the game never mentions them, so it's very likely for players to make it to the end without ever realizing they're there.
- Palette Swap: Enemy colors determine which attack patterns they have. Gray enemies in particular are invincible and perform powerful unblockable attacks until all other enemies are beaten.
- The Power of the Sun: The reason why humans settled on Zircon V was to harness the power of the sun, and it's revealed that there are even crystals that contain solar energy in the mines below. Tanner, the head of the sun worshipers, uses this to fire a beam of intense solar energy at The Wanderer. Dyson also utilizes solar energy lasers in his fight as well.
- Score Multiplier: Up to a 5x multiplier can be earned by accumulating combos, meaning perfect parries will be worth 1000 points.
- Scoring Points: Blocking, dodging and defeating enemies will add points that fill a Rank gauge on the top of the screen. The player can obtain up to 5000 exp points from rankings and then a time bonus, which is what actually matters for unlocking special moves and performing well at the leaderboards.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: The fourth boss cannot be approached, or else he'll hit the Wanderer with his unblockable and unavoidable scorpion tail. Too bad he keeps spawning plant people which will allow the Wanderer to build up combos for their grapple slam move, which will hit the boss with its shockwave.
- Unwitting Test Subject: The Wanderer was one for Doctor Dyson, the experience being so bad that the Wanderer doesn't want anyone to suffer the same way ever again.
- Video Game Dashing: The first level up unlockable is a dash action. It is useful for crowd control and is required against attacks that are otherwise both unblockable and undodgeable.
- A Winner Is You: After New Dawn ends with an Anti-Climax, the narrator teases the challenges of Passiverse mode. Said mode ends with just a generic congratulations message while the Wanderer gives the player a thumbs up.
