When One Punch Man: World was first announced, I was a bit apprehensive as I've always had a slight bias against mobile games with heavy action at the center of their gameplay. While I know projects such as Genshin Impact have long proven that intense combat can be incredible on mobile platforms, I've mainly found myself opting out for console versions of these titles. I was surprised when I discovered that One Punch Man: World is one of the best fighting games with adventure elements I've played in some time.
Full disclosure: I am a casual fighting game player at best. So, this review will be from the perspective of someone who is familiar with the genre, but isn't a master at it by any means. That said, I had a blast with my time playing One Punch Man: World. At its core, the game is anchored by a campaign that is currently divided into seven "arcs." Each one centers around a specific hero's story and is broken into "episodes" with heavy cutscenes.
However, what surprised me was the depth of the game's world outside of these episodes. While most of the Main Story is anchored at the Hero Association headquarters hub, players travel to various locations outside, such as "City A." It's here that you can really get lost for hours. Towards the beginning of the game, you get to experience the city from the perspective of Smile Man and Lightning Max as they patrol the town. Throughout City A, there are NPCs with side quests that have a wide range of objectives, from fetch quests to puzzles to even full-out boss battles.
In One Punch Man: World, most of the missions are broken into Biography and Side quests. With Biography, the missions are centered on a specific hero. Playing these gives you a deeper insight into the protagonists as you get to experience a self-contained story connected to the hero. In contrast, Side quests are picked up from random NPCs throughout the overworld. While these aren't as in-depth plot-wise, they are worth taking on as the stories tied to them are often interesting, and they give you rewards such as Team XP and in-game currency.
One of the more clever quest types in the game is NPCs talking about their past experiences with villains. As you listen to their story, the game has you jump into the flashback and take on the villain in an epic boss battle. The idea is that the heroes are learning new intel on villains by listening to the citizens' experiences of the city. I really liked this combat integration, as it gives players a good pace of action between side content.
As I explored the city, I couldn't help but be reminded of the cozy vibes of the Yakuza series, particularly how it handles its side quests with bizarre and humorous situations. For example, one of the early quests in One Punch Man: World has Smile Man trying to figure out the mystery of why the city thinks he dined and dashed a local udon restaurant. After interviewing various citizens, you eventually discover there is an imposter on the loose. Even small quests like his ooze with personality and do a good job of fleshing out the world. These were fun enough that I always went out of my way to clear any Biography or Side quests I saw on my overworld map.
What impressed me the most about One Punch Man: World is the mobile title's gameplay. While I'm not usually fond of touchscreen controls, I think Crunchyroll Games did a fantastic job implementing its action-heavy combat with its digital joysticks. Holding the screen horizontally, you can use your left thumb to move your character forward while using your right thumb to control the camera. While this isn't revolutionary by any means, the game is really responsive and fluid. I also appreciate the developer including a sprint button, which locks your character into a running animation with a single tap.
Another design choice I really liked is how One Punch Man: World keeps track of quests. As you complete Main Story missions and side stories, your Team Level ranks up, which gives you access to more content. To make all of this accessible, a Team Rank page lists all the content you've unlocked so far. So, in one single place, you can select your current or previous ranks and jump to side quests and challenges you haven't completed yet. This makes navigating the overworld to side content incredibly easy, which is perfect for mobile gaming on the go.
Where the game really shines, though, is its action combat. Out of everything that surprised me the most about One Punch Man: World, it was its boss battles. When I say they are epic, I mean it in the best way possible. I'm talking break-neck speed action with non-stop movement. While this could have easily become clunky with the touch-screen controls, it actually works really smoothly due to how combat is implemented in the game's UI. During a battle, your hero has 3 to 4 Arm Skills and a normal attack on the screen's right side, represented by digital buttons. Because of this, you can quickly use your right thumb to tap each ability button as their cooldown resets to easily chain combos.
One of the game's best decisions is them giving you a dedicated dodge button under your Arm Skills. Again, this might sound simple on paper. But this allows you to quickly zip away from an enemy's attacks if timed correctly. With all of this combined, you can constantly keep your character running in and out of battle while outmaneuvering incoming attacks. And again, I initially thought this would become overwhelming and clunky. But even as a casual fighting game fan, combat really flows together smoothly despite all the hectic action around you.
With combat out of the way, it's time to address the elephant in the room. I know with most mobile titles, one of the things most players want to know about is the "gacha" element. Yes, One Punch Man: World has a gacha system. However, it's surprisingly fair. For starters, I do not believe this game has a pay-to-win system like other titles in the genre. Let me explain. As someone who acquired a handful of the game's best characters (SSR heroes), I still got absolutely demolished in certain boss fights despite using my most powerful units. That is because each villain has its weaknesses, and certain characters and their movesets are better suited against them.
To give you an example. In the first half of the game, there was a boss fight that I could not beat with my SSR Hero. But I was able to finally take him down using free-to-play characters because they were better suited for this specific encounter. Most boss fights also can't be won by simply spamming powerful attacks, which is another reason relying on the gacha system will only get you so far. A big component of this game is skill and understanding the flow of combat. And while I'm not one of the most skilled players out there, this is actually one of my favorite things about One Punch Man: World - it's challenging but fair.