As most of you would have known by now, there is an English mobile game based on One Punch Man currently in the pre-registration phase. Titled One Punch Man: Road to Hero, this is published by Hong Kong-based Oasis Games and developed internally by one of its teams in China. Currently the Closed Beta phase for One Punch Man: Road to Hero is ending soon with a data wipe, so we thought it is a good time to briefly go through the game and also share our thoughts. Hopefully the game will get better in future versions!
• As much as we would like to proclaim how much better overall the China-exclusive version One-Punch Man: The Strongest Man is, the fact is that these are 2 totally different development teams and 2 different games made for 2 different markets. The western market does not have a choice, so we will refrain from touting the China version too much.
• One Punch Man: Road to Hero is basically a character collection game, where characters from both Hero and Monster Associations can be obtained to form a team. Different modes will require different number of characters, but a 5-man team is most common for most.
• Battles take place on a 2 sides, each with 3 x 3 grids. Players can’t move their characters around, just taking control of the combat.
• The most basic game modes can be seen in the gameplay video above, including Story, Zeniru Starlight Arena (PVP), and The House of Evolution. Each of them provides players with drops and items essential for progression.
• We would say the most important is The House of Evolution, where players can obtain important upgrade items such as emblems, medals, and accessories which are the only form of gear that can be equipped on heroes. Accessories provide bonus stats when their 2 or 4 sets are complete on the same character.
• Seen below is a quick look at the current gacha rate in One Punch Man: Road to Hero. We did not realized that we already had 3 out of the 6 rarest characters in our team!
• As you can see, similar to The Strongest Man, Saitama sensei is not part of the gacha pool. While we are not sure what future plans are for him, we would make the safe bet that he will remain as a NPC rather than a playable character.
• Just a side note, if you are going to play One Punch Man: Road to Hero during official launch, make sure you have a Doctor Genus in your team. It is not because his name sounds like a body part. Seriously, you need him more than you realize during battles.
• As of now, One Punch Man: Road to Hero is truly unpolished as many convenience features are missing. Notice how we had to manually upgrade the accessories? And how there is no raid feature? Oasis Games stressed that this is not the final version which is going to launch, so we have our hopes up. In fact, what we are seeing in the Closed Beta version now is different from the promotional images! Stay tuned for more updates.
