The US and European release of the first Demon Slayer game, Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles, was recently announced by SEGA. The bad news is that western fans will have to wait until October for it, even though it's already out in Japan. The good news is that Demon Slayer fans who haven't done so already can take this opportunity to explore the wide world of anime gaming while they wait.
As anime enjoys growing international popularity, more games based on those properties have gotten international releases, and titles based on long-running shounen series like One Piece, Dragon Ball, and Naruto have enjoyed more frequent entries - another new One Piece game is already rumored. Major shounen from the last decade like My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan have also had one or more games released, and it seems likely that Demon Slayer will follow suit.
Like the anime they're based upon, most of these titles focus on combat, and the Demon Slayer game promises to follow this trend. But combat in an anime game can take a surprising number of forms, so here are just a few highlights. Jump Force is a notable absence here, as while it deserves a nod for melding together characters from franchises as disparate as Hunter X Hunter and Death Note (and this combined with its visual appeal may make it worth checking out for some), its gameplay has enough issues to make calling it "great" a matter of debate.
Pirate Warriors places Koei Tecmo's musou beat-em-ups into the world of One Piece, with delightful and cathartic results. Pirate Warriors 4 is the most recent and arguably best iteration of the series, offering the most detailed maps and an updated roster of characters (at least a third of which are women). Its interpretation of combat with One Piece's many bizarre Devil Fruit powers is largely effective thanks to its over-the-top nature. There's good reason the IP was responsible for the highest-selling manga in Japan for decades - until Demon Slayer came along.
The international popularity of Attack on Titan made it ripe for video game interpretation. Attack on Titan 2 gets deeper into the series' story while offering gameplay improvements upon its predecessor. Just zipping around titans and environments using vertical maneuvering gear like a steampunk Spiderman is worth the price of entry alone, but targeting and slicing a titan's nape in combat is also quite satisfying.
DRAGON BALL FighterZ is the highest-rated game on this list, with a score of 87 on Metacritic. While Dragon Ball itself may not currently have the popularity that Demon Slayer enjoys, its been an anime staple for decades, and DRAGON BALL FighterZ does the series justice. It was developed by Arc System Works, the company behind the Guilty Gear series, and the studio has leveraged its technical prowess to make a fighting game that looks nearly as much like an anime as it does a game. DRAGON BALL FighterZ is a 2D fighter with rich 3D graphics, and so is more in the vein of Guilty Gear or Street Fighter, but it's also a top-notch fighting game even outside the context of its beloved IP.
For those intrigued by Demon Slayer not for its combat, but for the existence of darker themes in its story, Steins;Gate Elite may be of interest. Unlike the other games on this list, Steins;Gate Elite is a visual novel. It tells the tale of how even seemingly innocuous forays into time travel can have huge consequences. Steins;Gate began as a game, was turned into an anime, and then Elite adopted the anime's style. There's no adrenaline rush from combat here, but still plenty of gut-wrenching tension. The same developer has also begun working on a game for Laid-Back Camp.
Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles will cap off an incredible year for Demon Slayer, which also saw the western release of its first film, Mugen Train. In the meantime, there are plenty of games to keep anime fans busy until The Hinokami Chronicles releases on October 15th.
Source: Metacritic
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