nice japan game

This game is a very challenging game, the diffiulty may push players away, but it is also a very fun game once you get the hang of it. This game is not for those who like having "the victory" given to them.

Here's some quick gameplay notes:

Each enemy has something unique that requires a different approach.

Levels have unique setups enemy setups and conditions, so the game never feels stale.

Animations are well done. The staff wielding enemies are a prime example.

Attacking an enemy is very satisfying because of the way they react to it.

There are various power ups, attacks, abilities, and items that can be unlocked. One ability that you should focus on getting is Air Guard.

The game supports local co-op (the entire campaign) via gamepad and KB. Both Xinput and Direct Input gamepads are supported (you'll have to configure Direct Input gamepads through the buggy config.exe. Xinput works by default). The game is difficult enough for you to "take turns" with 2 or more friends around.

The combat is not broken as some say and the game does not break its own rules; the only attacks that are unblockable are ones with exclamation marks, it does not depend on the enemy using chi attacks (I do not recall the game ever saying that chi attacks are unblockable) there can be a combination of chi attacks and unblockable attacks which are indicated by an exclamation point.

You have to use common sense when fighting some enemies. You can generally tell if an attack will cause you to stagger should you attempt to guard against it. Some enemies will try to land successive hits. Your first block requires less precision; subsequent blocks require greater precision. You can dodge/block mid-combo.

The game's graphics remind me of the newer Street Fighter games and another game called Power Stone 2 (I'd love to see that on Steam some day).

All in all the game is fun if you like a challenge, you'll have fun retrying over and over again by yourself or with a friend, if you know how to laugh at yourself.

This is beat ‘em-up game where you fight not one, but many opponents in the same time.
It reminds me of games I played in my childhood. They were so difficult sometimes. If you wasn't skilled enough or didn't spend a lot of time to master the game, you couldn't finish it.
If you want to finish Kung Fu Strike even on easiest difficulty level, you need both: skill and time. And a gamepad too.
Is it good? Definitely yes. Well polished, no bugs, good piece of software.

VERDICT:
If you like beat ‘em-up games and don't afraid of high difficulty level, take it. You will have a lot of fun.
If you're not sure if you're hard-core or casual player, find out playing this game.
If you know, you're casual player, better play solitaire.

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A challenging brawler with a lot of sticking power. It's frustrating and fun, and the gameplay is very satisfying. Playing this reminded me of the videogames I played as a kid: You will die. A lot. You will continously try to beat the same boss for an hour and when you finally do, you'll cheer. Some of the enemies fight extremely dirty, and there will come a point where you will all but have to look up combos and strategies to advance, but it's worth it. For $10, it's a lot of fun!

Kung Fu Strike actually surprised me a lot. It has a fabulous fighting with pleasant graphics and animation, spectacular attacks, as in the Japanese-Chinese movies. An interesting and enjoyable combat system with lighting fast moves and super abilities which can be triggered by gaining enough rage. There are a crazy numbers of combos you can pull off which is always fun to see, and the nature of the game play makes it easy for anyone to pick up and play. However, there's a certain level of patience and stubbornness involved to beat the game. If you're one of those hardcore players that see games not as entertainment but rather as a challenge and a test of character, then this simple fighting game will abuse you just the way you like it. You may have a struggle in the later levels of the game, but co-op will make that easier for you. This is a challenging, yet simplistic and adrenaline fueling game, something to keep you entertained for hours.

The game is awesome! Yes it is hardcore fighting. Read below about it!

IMPORTANT: negative reviews which are based on complains regarding the special moves.
Saw that people complaining how bosses ignores your block, they break your moves and whatever.

THIS IS NOT TRUE

You are free to block, break, dodge any move, even special ones, bosses does that too.
For example swordsman, the 4th level, I didn't have anything unlocked, managed to get A rank on normal for 54 seconds with combos up above 100, how?

First to mention, there is no such thing as special or attack which cannot be blocked, dodged.

Swordsman low hit special.
He makes low hit, low hit cannot be blocked, then you either evade with L or jump with K then hit with J and again with K to break his block. Then hold J to make combo, then JK and you get him stunned most of the times.
It is very important to press it on the right time, don't wait the hits to appear, they disappear quickly.

Swordsman spin attack.
How to dodge the spin attack, evade forward with L you will roll underneath him. Or press space to block and then L to evade, succeeds all the time.
In short you use block and evade at the same time because spin attack makes several hits.

The level with several bosses and normal enemies 3rd one.
There you start with 3 special enemies which causes quakes when they hit the ground, you have chi potion in the middle, you run around them, then you evade with L and right after that activate special hit with J and K thats how you break them.
Another hint, normal enemies attack the bosses if boss hit them or bosses attacks them if they hit him.
So your strategy is to evade as much as possible and wait till they get together to use special on them.

The game is just really hard, I mean really hard because i just started playing it, I've played another fighting games and haven't seen one that requires so much time to make a tactic how to beat it.

So, in case someone tells you that bosses play unfair and they break your moves and attacks in impossible way, thats not true, you can do the same thing with their attacks, just you should find a way how because every enemy is unique in style and requires time to study the moves.

ABOUT THE GAME

It has nice graphics, sound is nice, music doesn't bother, comic story panels on missions makes it look cool, reminds me of Street Fighter as graphic style actually.
As for missions, every single one is different and requires different strategy, you may be the best on some level, still got smashed in another one for seconds.
On the other side movements are very good, attacks and blocks are dynamic, theres no delay, everything is executed right away and you must know how to play piano to deal with it. As fighting style reminds me of Killer Instinct 2 to be honest about.
You have 4 button system, block, evade, jump, attack, with plenty of combination to make a nice combo in any situation, specials are not that important, they are needed if you want to knock off the enemy for awhile.
In the game you have things to unlock, you earn money and you can unlock additional skills or buy items, which is pretty cool too.
Seems like in this game everything that matters is skills to block, evade and counter attack then combo.

Multiplayer, coop, vs, haven't tried those!

It is not the best fighting game for sure, it is not the typical fighting game too, certainly not a game for you if you just want to beat someone.
It has non-standard gameplay, it is made to be a challenge, so if you like to get beaten a lot till you figure out how to pass the level, then you can get it and try it out.

I absolutely LOVE this game.

Is it very deep? Not terribly so. Is there a huge amount of content? Eh, not really. Are all levels fun? Definitely not (bomb levels in specific). But, if the stars align, this is one of the most silly fun games i've ever played.

The Swordsman is the absolute pinnacle of my enjoyment. I went from getting absolutely demolished the first 40-50 times, to being able to beat him with no health on the hardest difficulty. You will realize his script. You will know what he is doing, when, and how. And then you will beat him in your sleep. And you would think this is a bad thing, but it really isn't. Because you actually feel skillful when you get to that point. It won't be frustrating. It won't feel cheap.

And the sheer number of moves and combo's that you have are ridiculous. Press X 4 times slowly and you'll get a powerful high damage slam combo. Press x 4 times and hit a twice and you'll get an aerial kick to follow it. Hold x and you will have a huge flurry of punches. Mix and match high's/ lows and you will get some new combos. And once you know all of them, how to do them, and can do them reliably, the game will go from impossible, to you giving the asking hand to the enemies, saying "Bring it".

I look forward to any more content from these developers, and truly want to thank them for this incredibly fun game.

2/21/2017-

I'm a few more hours in at this point (by few I mean more than a few), and I want to reiterate how much fun, how much raw enjoyment I get from this game. I'm more of an ARPG fan, so to get such a fresh new lease on this genre after none of the other major AAA titles did anything for me has really broadened my scope of interest.

When you first play this game, the sheer complexity can be overwhelming. This game doesn't cater to desperation combo's, and those will get you killed fast. You have to make all of your actions deliberate. The enemy AI is calibrated extremely well. So well, that even when you know their script, it is still difficult. Grunts will rarely try to initiate attacks, but the moment you attack them, others will sieze a chance to strike. You cannot use the same combo or strategy everywhere.

The animations are some of the best quality i've seen in a game, easily comparable to the biggest names.

I've learned to time my attacks so that it's a fluid string of strikes, with very little delay between both. When I spin kick, I wait til my feet touch the ground before I keep going, I've learned to hit block if you've made an attack near a group. I can beat every boss (well, a few still destroy me, namely the final story mission bosses). I have played this for entire days, only to end up playing more the next.

I have a couple of complaints, but they're so small, that the only one worth even mentioning is the lack of online matches. But that's more of a desire than it is a fault.

And do you want to know the best part? The absolute best part of this game? When I think i've learned everything there is to offense, I always end up proving myself wrong with new tricks.

I hope the developers make a sequel, because I would buy it in an instant. Big thanks to you developers.

The Swordsman (no health max difficulty)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfXmUk-imYU

Enemy Hero Arena (Max Difficulty. Sadly, Staffy Mcstafferson got me at the end)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-IaDsDrk3s&t=23s

Grunts and Kicky Mckickerson (Max Difficulty)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvAHszz-7Q4

Kung Fu Stike was a very unexpected blast to play. But be warned it is a very difficult game that wants you to lose. I would not suggest it to gamers that get easily frustrated. So you may be wondering what is this game about? Well it is a weird mix of a beat'em up and a fighting game with a rather cool option to call in reinforcements if you don't mind paying some much needed gold. The story is well....I have no idea what is going on to be honest, but you can safely ignore it without missing much of anything due to its paper thin plot.

The visuals are pretty nice and remind me of Street Fighter 4. The music is nothing memorable but it gets the job done. Pretty much everything is just average in Kung Fu Strike, but where it really shines is in its fast paced, combo centered gameplay. Controls feel nice and responsive, be it in a 3d brawler areana or a 2d boss section. And I love how the crowds of enemies don't just sit around and wait for you to punch them like in the Batman or Dynasty Warriors games. They will attack you from all sides at once rapidly draining your health unless you block or dodge out of the way. This is not a game where you are a overpowered god like character, you are simply a General trying to put down a rebellion and may occasionally need to rely on the help of your comrades if you are not skilled enough at the game.

Still your character is no push over. Deal or take enough damage and you could pull off some special moves that deal serious damage and have a generous area of effect arc to take out the lowly grunts or just get some breathing room when a boss is in the middle of a combo. You can also equip up to three items, from a herb that brings you back from the dead to taking less damage from explosives and thrown weapons. You regain life by picking up rice balls that fly out of a defeated enemy and they may also drop a item that you need to be able to call in for backup.

The game is not perfect though. By far the biggest problem I have with it is that the camera is just bad. Too the point of costing you more than a couple of fights due to it freaking out and spinning all over the place or some object being in front of the camera blocking your view. Another problem is that you cant change the resolution in the option menu but have to go into the game files and set it through a "Config" file. And the last problem worth noting is that alot of the time you require alot of luck. What I mean by that is you can sometimes go a match with the enemies dropping nothing but coins and no other useful items. Makes it quite frustrating when this game is very stingy with its checkpoint system and the overall difficulty.

Overall I would suggest you try the demo before you buy to get a feel for what this title offers. If you enjoy it and dont mind knowing it will get very difficult later on, it will have you addicted and wanting yet another go at that seemingly impossible boss fight. The sweet taste of victory when you finally bring down his health and dive quick him 20 feet through the air is more than enough to warrant the full price of $10 :p

I think this is a great game... well for the first hour. If you see a review with 0.5 hours or something? Disregard it really, it's not gonna tell you anything about the later game which posesses the issues to make it a not recommended.


Controls:

X is ground attack.
A is air attack.
X+A is a chi attack.

These work well, although X and A don't allow you to do any special combos, the chi attacks make up for it allowing you to buy multiple chi attacks that are activated through stuff like X+A, X then X+A, X+A mid air twice then X on the ground, ect. It's also nice to just mash A and X to go to town on the enemy without thinking too hard about combos.


RT is dodge
B and LT is deflect

One of these is the biggest issue with the game but i'll focus on it later. Dodging is as it sounds, you roll away quickly in the direction you chose then you move about twice as fast for a second afterwards. After this you go back to normal speed. Now to deflect which is a mechanic that allows you to be invincible for a second, and in that second any enemy that attacks you has their attack negatated and is knocked down. There are a few exceptions for how deflect works as some enemies still continue hitting you after you deflect your first attack (with no warning), and some don't even care and will hit through your deflect if they have an ! appear before they attack.

Now to the issues with this otherwise great beat'em up game. This is a review that needs a neutral option as if you look past it's issues, there is a lot of really fun parts to this game that I wish more people could enjoy.


Issues:
Lets start with one mechanic in this game where you hold X against an enemy when prompted too, and then press A to finish it off. This is some sort of guard break on the enemy but the issue i have with it is how long the A prompt is up and how much the X prompt can vary in length. Sometimes the X prompt is almost instant and sometimes it takes a while. If it was a set length, this would work regardless of its very quick-time event feel to it. This is also shoved in your face while you're attacking an enemy too and all you can do is sigh and do this boring mechanic yet again.

If you attack an enemy, other enemies will then attack you during your attack which you cannot cancel, at least to my knowledge. Usually you can get one or two hits off then run but that doesnt' work. So you have to get a few hits off and deflect the enemies, but you can't always do that until later on because of another issue right after this one. Overall this mechanic isn't bad just doesn't work with other issues in this game.

You have to buy the ability to deflect in mid-air and dodge in mid-air which is really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid. This is absolutely nessecary to the game later on and even in earlier levels. So if you do any air attacks, you're wide open until you get either one of these. This issue applies to guard breaks as to finish one off, you press A... an air attack.

Your brief speed-boost after dodging will end without just going to your way too slow normal walking speed, it will automatically make you do a FULL STOP wherever you are for half a second. Why is this a thing? Why don't i just go into normal ground speed, why do i have to go from roll to running to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stopped without me pressing a button. It's terrible, the only way to avoid this is to keep on rolling and attack an enemy before the stop happens which is annoying and is harder to focus on than you think due to the other issues all hitting you at once.

And now the mother of all issues with this game, deflecting. This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ doesn't work. It's not that you can't deflect, no you can easily deflect. It's that if 2 enemies attack you, which is very frequent. More often than not, they will attack you so you can only deflect ONE of them while the other will hit you no matter what. This is terrible. The ganking of the enemies ruins this feature so much as if one enemy hits you, usually 2 or 3 more will start to attack. You attack one enemy and then the enemies approach you, deflect to counter them and woopse either 1, the enemy you were hitting suddenly breaks the stun lock you put him in for no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason and hits you almost instantly, stun locking you. 2, the enemy attacks in different intervals so you can't deflect them all. Or 3, you get lucky and only 1 or 2 enemies attack you in a way where you can deflect it. Maybe if you're extremely lucky you can just attack the enemy and the RNG doesn't decide to randomly screw you over.


So many issues with this otherwise great game don't just make the side things annoying but effect the main game. I just can't recommend it. It's a blast at first, but it gets boring. Money is too hard to come by to buy new skills and items, the inconsistenties in this game are too extreme at moments, the deflect system that is pressured on you doesn't work enough with the rest of the game, and overall a giant amount of design flaws. You can tell they understand how to make something more fluid in areas like how nice the rolling is. The rolling part feels so nice, you can change direction easily with no worries. The X and A spamming also works very well. I don't know what it is about it but all the combos go how i'd think they'd go. Which makes it easier to use them. The fluidity and challenge that this game possesses isn't fully taken away. What deals the final blow between recommended and not recommended is the pricing, 10 dollars does not match this game's quality and how much content it has fully. Yes it has a lot of effort put into it and I feel bad almost for not recommending this game, but it's true. I'm usually overaly critical on games but on this one, i really think these are really bad design choices. So if it's on sale? Get it. If not, save it as this game's not a short gem. It's a game most people play for 0.5 hours then go "Coll gaem, thums up" and never play it again.

This game is a difficult beat 'em up were you fight a lot of enemies at the same time.

Pros
• A lot of replay value.
  
• A bunch of upgrades to unlock.
  
• Beautiful artwork.
  
• Easy Controls (Keyboard and Controller).
  
• Co-op makes the game more enjoyable.

Cons
• Once you get towards half of the game...the game gets pretty difficult. I ended up getting, for the most part, rank Ds on Easy/Normal difficulties.
  
• Later levels seem almost impossible playing on singleplayer (THIS GAME IS MEANT TO BE PLAYED WITH SOMEONE ELSE).
  
• Sometimes the enemies get overwhelming, so you HAVE to get rid of them quickly.

I luckily got this game for just $1, so in my opinion for that price is well worth it. I'd say for half the price or less this game is well worth it if you are into challenging games.