Manga Fighter Review: Hey, Isn't that Pedobear!?

By Vincent Haoson (Vincenthaoson), OnRPG Journalist

Manga Fighter is a casual third person shooter from Publisher Games Campus, the company who also handles games such as Shot Online, Asda Story, MLB Dugout Heroes and Xiah Rebirth.

Manga Fighter revolves around the story of two kids Ken and Hana who accidentally stumbled into the world of Pangaea, a world of toys. They found out that if they want to return to Earth they would need to collect essences found throughout Pangaea and that they would have to battle against toys to get it.

Starting the Game

There are six characters you can choose to use in Manga Fighter, The humans Ken and Hana, the animals Kuma and Miumiu and the aliens Dr. Uru and Sai. The character you choose on the start of the game would be your permanent avatar in-game.

Upon entering the world of Pangaea you are asked if you would like to take part in the training that the game system gives you. It is advisable that you take the lecture because not only would it help you be familiar with the game controls, it would also provide you in-game currency that you can use to suit up your character.

You have four weapon types in Manga Fighter that you can use. They can be accessed using the 1-4 buttons and can be switched in battle. The four types of weapons are the melee weapons, the gun weapons, the launcher and the thrown weapons.

Game Modes

There are six different game modes in Manga Fighter you can participate in. They are namely the Deathmatch Point or Time Mode, the Team Deathmatch Point or Time Mode, Keeping the Essence Mode, VIP mode and Practice mode.

The Deathmatch mode is your typical beat 'em up style of fighting where your goal is to attack other players till their HP reaches zero while you try to keep yours. The two kinds of Deathmatch mode available is the Time and the point system. In the timed Deathmatch you have to keep on killing till the time expires and whoever gets the most kills wins, while in  the whole concept in the Deathmatch point system is the same except there's a point cap that you have to reach, whoever reaches the point cap first wins.

Next would be the Team Deathmatch mode. The general gameplay is the same with the individual Deathmatch except that you play this in teams.

Keeping the Essence mode is the trademark game mode for Manga Fighter. The goal of the game is to have your team hold on to the essence as long as possible within the time allotted. Whoever has the most time holding the essence when the time ends wins.

The goal on VIP mode is to eliminate the other team's VIP while defending your team's VIP. Each VIP kill awards the team who killed points and whoever gets the most points when the time ends wins.

Practice mode is practically self-explanatory. You get to practice with the weapons you get by killing practice bunnies.

Skill Cards

You don't only rely on weapons as you fight in Manga Fighter. You also have skills that your character can use in the form of skill cards. You can either buy them from the shop or they may be dropped in-game.

There are four levels of skill cards which are the metal, silver gold and rainbow colored cards. The colors represent how high the level your cards and they are ranked from lowest to highest accordingly.

There are various requirements before you can use a card during a fight. One is the level of your character. Skill cards are level locked and therefore if you lack the required level you cannot use a high level card. Next would be the amount of skill points your character has. Each card has its own required Skill points and you would need to meet the amount of skill points before you can use it.

You are allowed on about 3 skills cards that you can carry into a game and an one open skill card slot for the skill card you may happen to chance upon in the battle.

Personal Recommendation

Manga Fighters is a Third person shooter that brings cuteness into a genre that is dominated by serious and dark themes. Where can you see a game where your weapons shoot out pellets or toys and get killed with them?

With a genre that is doomed to have a recycle of the same game modes gift-wrapped with a different kind of title, Manga Fighter accepts that fact wholly but adds the charm of battling in child-inspired maps that is a perfect venue for shooters like this.

The whole kid-world look works well for the game as well as the characters are well suited in such a theme as this. The game handles smoothly and the controls are intertwined with the type of character you are playing, so if you chose Kuma, who looks like a clumsy character, your controls feel clumsy.

As a Third person shooter game, the in-game item drops and boosts should go smoothly with the game itself especially if you are in a tough battle, but it seems that the in-game items sometimes don't click and that you'd have to sometimes pass through them twice before you get the drop. This is true with the skill card drops.

The root of that issue is that the game has lag problems once in a while. If it takes you to pass through an item drop twice before you can acquire it would mean that the game is lagging. Thankfully this has happened only on a few occasions, but it would really pain you especially if it's an important match.

Another thing about Manga Fighters is that there are times when a match becomes totally imbalanced. One example was that while I was in a team Deathmatch, my teammates left me and I was off alone and the match was like one against four. It would have been better if the game has an auto-team balance system that players don't have to activate it or not. It may be fun to go against such odds especially if you are on the larger side but it isn't that fun when you are practically spawning just so you can become chicken fodder for the other team.

Overall Manga Fighters is a game that is cute and fun to play. You can't really blame the game for the lack of innovation though because the genre itself is locked. The game practically bathes on cuteness and it has not failed to grab attention. The fast-paced shooting is also another plus for the game but there are still lingering issues the game has to fix. If you'd like to feel like a kid once again and use toys to go play "boom boom" then this game is for you.

Pros:
- Cute characters adds to the playablity factor of the game
- Purchasable skill cards adds flavor to an otherwise bland shooter game
- You have a mini-map that you can use as your reference in stages that would seem to be a little bit confusing.

Cons:
- Awkward camera angle can hinder in gameplay
- Lag issues arise specially when you are in the heat of things
- Players can determine team balance in the battle, some can abuse this and make a batlle 4 v 1 without the game stopping midway.