FROM MANGA TO VIDEO GAME: Onepunch-man
The action of one punch man has fans and critics equally excited. Here you have a bloke that can end a fight in just one punch. This man that was just an ordinary bloke that one day decide to become a hero and just did, because that’s exactly how you become a hero, right? Well in the world of one punch man it is. Our main character Saitama is no average bloke. As far as we know he is almost indestructible, is super-fast, powerful, but can’t fly. Yeah I know how lame right, he can’t fly. Anywho that’s OK he transcends his lack of flight by the overwhelming amount of power he has in his punch. Each opponent that has faced him has been defeated in just one punch. These are punches that blast through a bloke’s stomach like a cannon blast sending guts and all their squishy bits flying everywhere. OK, OK I know you’re all excited as to what kind of game this could be. I know that summary has my mind swirling with ideas so it must be doing the same for you. So, shall we begin?
Due to the plot being the way that it is it is very easy to make tons of enemy clones and throw them at the character, and it would make sense in the context of the manga’s plot. So what I am thinking about is a dynasty warrior’s style game. It should be noted that those types of games are among my least favorite genres, but on the off occasion there is a gem among them that I end up liking. One punch man the game could be one of those gems. It’s fast, crazy, over the top and it has many pawns in the way of the main characters before the boss fight. Wow this manga seems almost made to be made into a game.
Now that we have our genre it’s time to figure out the way it will actually play, because what sets the good dynasty warriors games aside from the poo that the bad ones are. A few differences like the fan service (I mean all the different Gundams not hentai you pervs) in the Gundam games are the kind of added bonuses that make a good beat ‘em up work. For one punch man I’d like co-op campaigns with splitting paths that the second player has to take as the main guy works his way to the boss. So basically they’d play through the beginning sections as a team but as they got further one would choose to fight a mini boss as a distraction so that the other would be unhindered, thereby allowing them to fight the boss. Stages should be similar to the usual games of this genre. There is no need to make them beautiful as most of the locations in the manga are nothing special. They would obviously have to be noticeable by fans of the series, but nothing like a mortal kombat X kind of background detail. This will also allow for more computing power for the system to process the hundreds of enemies that will be thrown at the character. I don’t think they should be stupid they usually are in these kind of games though as this is where the extra computing will be focused. Making them attack and giving the player a proper counter attack all batman arkum style would be a better mechanic than dumb as a nub enemies. This would make for a much more engaging game and may even be a new way going forward for other games of that genre.
As for the story I could see quite a few options. Saitama is a unique and out of this world character he and the rest of the cast off Onepunch-man are bizarre to say the least, so I’d use that and craft a new story that is equal to the chapters in the manga. If you have played a one piece unlimited cruise game then you know what I’m talking about. For each of those games the developers have crafted a story that is unique to that game and not just unique, but also equal to the quality of what they put out for the manga and anime. This is what fundamentally sets the one piece games aside from the regular rerun style that the average manga games all share. A Onepunch-man game can borrow this style of storytelling as a way to explore some of the lore surrounding its universe and characters.
Manga: Onepunch-man
Publisher: Viz Media
Mangaka: Yūsuke Murata, One
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Comedy, Super hero
Concept Game: Onepunch-man
Genre: Beat ’em up
This is my proposal for Onepunch-man: the Game. Did I miss anything? What is yours?
