One Finger Death Punch is a surprise entry in the Silver Dollar library. The company has a reputation for making cheap, low-quality shovelware, but OFDP is the singular diamond in their hoard of utter garbage. It can best be described as 1/4 Rhythm Game, 1/4 Beat 'em Up, 1/4 wuxia movie, and 1/4 Xiao Xiao animation. If any of that sounded remotely close to your tastes, this game is for you.
You could easily dismiss it for its simple "Flash game"-style graphics, cheesy presentation (including a very stereotypical Old Master narrator), and lack of a plot, but it's quite clear that OFDP loves both the campiness and awesomeness of the '80s kung fu movie fights it emulates. The game is mechanically elegant—its controls are deceptively simple and easy to understand, but every single button press is important and ultimately results in something happening. That 'something' is usually a brutal pummeling for some unlucky stickman—one of the bad guys, if you're doing it right.
However, there is also enough complexity that you can't simply button mash your way to victory. A degree of timing, rhythm, and perception is required to keep up with the increasingly frantic pace that the game likes to drive towards. OFDP keeps things complex and varied by the introduction of diverse enemy types, weapons, super attacks, and special stages, enough to keep things lively and interesting even when replaying a stage.
It's not without its flaws. The graphics are by their very nature simple and almost primitive, the need to focus on your range and timing makes it hard to enjoy the results of your attacks, and the semi-random nature of your moves, including your power moves, can throw off your sense of timing. However, such is the nature of such a reaction based game, with its high skill ceiling and low barriers to access.
In brief, One Finger Death Punch is hectic, colorful, and sometimes slightly frustrating, but it's viscerally cathartic and, above all, a lot of fun. The simplistic character design makes its violence more awesome than gruesome, and it's always entertaining to elbow a bad guy so hard that he goes rocketing through two walls and into the next county over. It's not a bad little game for ~$5 USD and an absolute steal at half that price.
VideoGame Fast, Flashy, Flash-like Fun.
One Finger Death Punch is a surprise entry in the Silver Dollar library. The company has a reputation for making cheap, low-quality shovelware, but OFDP is the singular diamond in their hoard of utter garbage. It can best be described as 1/4 Rhythm Game, 1/4 Beat 'em Up, 1/4 wuxia movie, and 1/4 Xiao Xiao animation. If any of that sounded remotely close to your tastes, this game is for you.
You could easily dismiss it for its simple "Flash game"-style graphics, cheesy presentation (including a very stereotypical Old Master narrator), and lack of a plot, but it's quite clear that OFDP loves both the campiness and awesomeness of the '80s kung fu movie fights it emulates. The game is mechanically elegant—its controls are deceptively simple and easy to understand, but every single button press is important and ultimately results in something happening. That 'something' is usually a brutal pummeling for some unlucky stickman—one of the bad guys, if you're doing it right.
However, there is also enough complexity that you can't simply button mash your way to victory. A degree of timing, rhythm, and perception is required to keep up with the increasingly frantic pace that the game likes to drive towards. OFDP keeps things complex and varied by the introduction of diverse enemy types, weapons, super attacks, and special stages, enough to keep things lively and interesting even when replaying a stage.
It's not without its flaws. The graphics are by their very nature simple and almost primitive, the need to focus on your range and timing makes it hard to enjoy the results of your attacks, and the semi-random nature of your moves, including your power moves, can throw off your sense of timing. However, such is the nature of such a reaction based game, with its high skill ceiling and low barriers to access.
In brief, One Finger Death Punch is hectic, colorful, and sometimes slightly frustrating, but it's viscerally cathartic and, above all, a lot of fun. The simplistic character design makes its violence more awesome than gruesome, and it's always entertaining to elbow a bad guy so hard that he goes rocketing through two walls and into the next county over. It's not a bad little game for ~$5 USD and an absolute steal at half that price.