Hunter x Hunteris finally taking its first great leap into the fighting game genre withHunter x Hunter: Nen Impact. As one of the most influential and acclaimed shonen series of all time, aHunter x Hunterfighting game has certainly been a long time coming.Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impacthas a relatively small starting roster, with only 16 playable characters joining the fray. The roster has yet to be fully revealed, but the characters shown off so far seem to indicate a troubling trend.
The roster’s size would be a big enough limitation on its own, but one that developers could surely overcome thanks to the complex creativity inherent to the series. However, the makeup ofHunter x Hunter: Nen Impact’s launch rosterpresents a more significant issue that developers should attempt to curtail: inspiration for the game seems to largely ignore the original manga.
Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impact Needs to Make the Most of the Series' Unique Characters
Hunter x Hunter’s Complex Powers are a Double Edged Sword
Hunter x Hunteris acclaimed for many reasons, one of which being its very complex power system. Many characters have abilities with specific conditions that create a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. While this feature of the series has allowed for an enormous array of wholly unique abilities, it doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to a fighting game.
This is the guiding principle that made aHunter x Hunterfighting gameseem so unlikely. Even some of the series' most prominent characters only participate in a handful of fights. Even after decades of on and off publication, many characters haven’t shown off everything they’re capable of, and even the ones that have fought more often employ abilities that would be difficult to translate.
Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impact May Be Limiting its Inspiration
Thecomplex abilities featured inHunter x Hunterare certainly a blessing and a curse. As much as it may make some major characters difficult to include, successfully translating some of these abilities could result in character designs that feel extremely unique from anything seen in other fighting games. After all, one of the biggest appeals of anime fighting games and other similar projects is seeing one’s favorite characters faithfully adapted into a playable state.
However,Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impactmay be taking on a much larger issue than the size of its roster or the potential complexity of the characters within it. Although the reasoning for the decision remains unclear at this time,Nen Impactseems to be solely limiting its inspiration to characters and events featured in the series' anime adaptation.
Ignoring material from the manga may seem like a small slight at first. After all, the anime is what the majority of fans are going to be familiar with, and developers likely don’t want to include anything that would be a major spoiler for its own host of players. Likewise, it’s only fair to recognize thatNen Impact’s developers may only have a license for the anime, and could actually be barred from openly reaching into the manga’s territory. However, this remains anessential issue forHunter x Hunterto approach.
Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impact Needs to Embrace the Full Potential of its Characters
After all, while excluding manga material may simply be disappointing on its own, it does a lot exacerbate the other issues that the game is already up against. Some ofHunter x Hunter’s main charactershave only made a handful of appearances on the battleground, with some of their most exciting moments being events in the manga that are seemingly being overlooked.
There is no better example so far than the recent reveal Chrollo, the cunning leader of thePhantom Troupe. Chrollo can steal the abilities of others, and craft a custom arsenal to deal with any opponent. Despite being one of the series' main antagonists, Chrollo’s appearances are few and far between, meaning fans of the anime have only witnessed a fraction of what he’s capable of.
Chrollo’s most iconic and exciting fightis exclusive to the manga, where he employed a number of abilities that had never been seen before during one of the series' most long-awaited matchups. By contrast, Chrollo’s reveal trailer forNen Impactdoes not include any reference to this fight. Instead, Chrollo only employs the one or two abilities he has been seen to use in the anime.
Hunter x Hunter’s manga-only Succession Contest Arcfeatures some of the series' most creative characters yet. Of course, they will all be absent from any adaptation that exclusively takes inspiration from the anime. What’s bound to be more disappointing for fans ofHunter x Hunteris the limitation placed on the characters that are already confirmed. After all, barring characters inHunter x Hunter: Nen Impactfrom making the most of their abilities may squander what makes the game such an exciting concept to begin with.
