There are numerous VR games available, some more specialist than others. Curious Games’ Slap Fighter certainly falls into the specialist category, taking the rising sport and giving it some gaming flavour. And it looks the business, but as the experts at 131XR find in their review, Slap Fighter isn’t quite as in-depth as you’d hope.
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Get yer slap on!
If you’ve ever watched a slap-fighting tournament or even just a short clip on social media, you’ll know mostly what to expect. Unlike boxing or martial arts games, where you can punch and uppercut, in Slap Fighter, you must master the art of the slap! Unclench that hand and make sure your palm is flat to strike your opponents with intention.
Unlike real slap fighting, where opponents stay still, standing on either side of a podium, in Slap Fighter, there’s room to move. But that’s not all, because the game has another twist up its sleeve, and that’s elemental attacks. Unfortunately, these aren’t the round-winning power moves you’d hope they’d be.
Slap Fighter Review
131XR’s initial review impressions of Slap Fighter are promising. It’s a very well-polished game visually, audibly and narratively. The character models and environment design are brilliantly vivid and a joy to look at. Perfectly accompanied by rich audio FX and music. Even the story, involving some sinister slap-fighting corporation that’s taken over the world, is both ludicrous and amusing, delivered well between 2D comic-book style scenes and 3D storytelling.
Getting into the core slap-fighting gameplay, at first, it is fun, slapping opponents left and right. Learning how to unleash slap combos, slowing time and defending against incoming attacks. As for those elemental attacks mentioned, you can harness fire, water, earth, lightning, and wind to unleash stunning strikes. However, this is also where the holes begin to appear.
As both players can utilise elemental attacks, and each one can nullify another – think water voiding a fire – 131XR finds that you don’t actually want to use them as a power attack. Like a game of rock, paper, scissors, the temptation is to hold off, not waste them and only use them for counterattacks. Similarly, the core slap mechanics turn out to be very shallow, lacking enough variety for an engrossing experience long-term.
What’s next for Slap Fighter?
Slap Fighter is the first game from the Curious Games team, and we hope they continue to support and round out the gameplay. Currently, the studio hasn’t confirmed what updates are being prepared, but they have said they’re ‘listening to feedback’, so maybe the game will improve over time.
Have you been looking forward to Slap Fighter? Have you purchased the game? Let us know in the comments!
