Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronciles – The Final Preview


CyberConnect2 has established itself as one of the best in the business when it comes to anime-to-video game adaptations, with the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series standing out as one of the most faithful and visually spectacular of that bunch, alongside Dragon. Ball Z Kakarot offers an extremely respectable take on DBZ’s historical legacy.

The team’s next project is the truly excellent anime, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, and based on my initial experience with The Hinokami Chronicles, it is exactly what you would expect from CyberConnect2: absolutely jaw-dropping recreations of the most memorable moments in Demon’s history. Slayer. Accessible combat with some of the wildest super moves you’ve ever seen, and more than a few rough edges, but none sharp enough to dampen the excitement of a huge Demon Slayer fan.

If you’ve played any of the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games, a lot about the Hinokami Chronicles story mode will be very familiar to you. This is a condensed account of the history of Demon Slayer, covering the events until the end of the first season, mainly focusing on the most important moments of the 26-episode anime. Hinokami Chronicles actually pulls a page out of the playbooks of the first two Ultimate Ninja Storm games by putting yourself directly in the shoes of their main characters, be they Tanjiro, Zenitsu, or Inosuke, and allows you to roam their world, talking to NPC. , find collectible memorabilia that unlock scenes from the anime, and smell demonic scents that will lead you to your final destination.

You’ll also fight a lot of non-canon enemies in the form of basic demons, who tend to jump out of nowhere and attack you in certain areas, but the real stars in this mode are the big battles against the main ones. villains from every arc. These are epic fights against enemies that can be powered up and become almost impervious to your attacks, forcing you to fight them very differently than you would a normal enemy in versus mode. Do enough damage to them and you’ll trigger one of CyberConnect2’s famous QTE-loaded endings that are almost take-by-shot recreations of the same weather scenes from the anime using in-engine visuals. These are truly a sight to behold and only serve to further prove that CyberConnect2 is the master at bringing the anime show to the world of video games.

See also  Vampires beware: cheaters in V Rising can destroy your progress

In terms of fighting mechanics, The Hinokami Chronicles will also be quite familiar to those who play fighters in the arena, especially those who played previous CyberConnect2 games, although there are some pretty substantial differences. But on a basic level, there is a button for attacks, and that button can be pressed for a basic combo, or it can be modified by holding it down to launch them in an aerial combo, or holding it down for a combo that ends in a hard drop. Each character has three special moves that generally allow them to extend these combos, emphatically finish them off with a large amount of damage, or provide some other form of utility. Urokodaki, for example, can use his third special move to set a trap on the ground, Inosuke can use his to attack through attacks, and Tanjiro can be used as an invincible awakening attack.

Special moves are tied to a blue special meter that also governs your ability to use things like jump cancellations and dodge cancellations, so it’s very important to note this as a limited resource tied to some of your most important techniques. It also doesn’t regenerate while dodging, but it does regenerate quickly if it can pause for a second and not press any buttons.

Top 10 demon hunting moments

One of the biggest differences in Hinokami Chronicles is the inclusion of a combo timer, which seems to be used primarily as a way to prevent infinity, but also intelligently encourages and rewards some riskier games. When you perform a standard combo, an orange combo timer will count down the time remaining before the opponent automatically jumps and resets to a neutral position. The move the combo starts is what determines the length of your combo meter. Certain characters, like Zenitsu for example, have powerful special moves that can start a combo from near full screen, and in cases like these the combo timer will be red and quite short. Inosuke, on the other hand, has a rekka-style special move that gets a green combo timer, giving him a large amount of time to deal heavy damage if he lands it.

See also  NASA says goodbye to SOFIA: why it has decided to retire the Boeing with a reflecting telescope that detected water on the Moon

Where things get interesting is when you can use a risky parry to deflect an enemy attack at the perfect time. Landing one of these also gives you a green combo timer and really lets you add some massive damage. It’s a great example of risk versus reward and it also limits that horrible feeling of being stuck in a combo for forever and not being able to do anything about it.

Hinokami Chronicles is also a 2v2 fighter, with his partner tied to a two-bar meter with both offensive and defensive options. You can spend a bar to summon your teammate to perform one of your two assist attacks, and you can hold the tag button to swap them, although it’s important to note that they both share the same life bar. Most importantly, however, you can also spend both bars to get your partner in and out of a combo, which can save your life and also put you in an advantageous position.

In addition to all that, there are also push blocks, which weaken the guard, strong attacks that can be empowered through light attacks, a special power-up mode that increases the strength of your attacks, another power mode called Surge that temporarily gives you an unlimited meter, and of course, the super moves mentioned above are among some of the most impressive you’ve ever seen.

Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles Screenshots – Summer of Gaming 2021

All of this to say that despite the fact that Demon Slayer combat is simple on the surface level and may initially seem superficial, it’s easy to see that a lot of thought has gone into some of the deeper mechanics.

See also  50 million players in 2 weeks - Free2Play mega comeback

Overall, The Hinokami Chronicles is shaping up to be a promising start to what is almost certain to be a Demon Slayer game series. The story mode appears to meet the same quality standard set by Ultimate Ninja Storm and Kakarot, and the fighting mechanics are familiar, but it feels carefully tweaked to more closely match Demon Slayer’s fighting style and to enhance some of the weakest parts of Cyberconnect2 before. games. We’ll find out how the rest of the game fares when Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles launches on October 13, 2021, on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer for IGN. You can find it on twitter @JurassicRabbit




www.ign.com