One Punch Man Getting A Silly Fighting Game

Bandai Namco have announced a brand new fighting game, and this one’s based on One Punch Man. It’s called One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, which is as dumb and unnecessary a subtitle as any, I guess. It’s coming to Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC, and they’ve released a trailer showcasing some of the characters.

It’s going to be a 3 vs 3 kind of thing, which probably means something to people who play these kinds of games. The trailer shows several characters you’d expect to see, like Saitama, Genus, Speed-o-Sound Sonic and of course, Mumen Rider. It’s as flashy as any other anime fighter, and that’s all well and good, but there’s one thing in particular I don’t understand.

How do you make a fighting game with an invincible character in the roster? Even in the trailer, Saitama seems unfazed by the others’ attacks. The comic and show paint him as someone who is so powerful that he’s become bored with being a superhero. Nothing can cause him harm, and he dispatches even the most powerful enemeis with one punch (hence the title). Since they’ve confirmed him as a playable character, there’s no doubt they’ll have to do something to tone him down compared to the source material. There’s a scene near the beginning of the trailer in which he throws a multitude of punches, which is decidedly non-canon totally OK because it happened that one time.

The only worthy adversary he ever found was a mosquito. That’s bound to screw the game’s balance. Unless you can also play as the mosquito. Maybe it’s going to be a Mansquito crossover? One can hope. The trailer advertises it as “coming soon”, so we’ll probably get to see for ourselves in the near future.