"Iron Fist of Fury 4" review: Pure to the extreme "Iron Fist of Fury"

Iron Fist of Fury 4 is pure. Pure to you in the process of playing, you can clearly feel the production team's understanding and love of the "Iron Fist of Fury" series.

We all know that for these classic games that are almost equivalent to childhood memories, how to launch a legitimate sequel that will satisfy old players and attract new players is a very difficult thing, and this difficulty is proportional to the time span of the launch of the sequel.

"Iron Fist 3" is a 1994 work, and "Iron Fist 4" release time, a full 26 years apart. In the past 26 years, the game-related industry and development technology have made rapid progress. As an art carrier highly dependent on the development of technology, the current form of expression of games is not as simple as that of the 1990s. Because of this, the aesthetic standards of the game have also risen.

In such an environment, the sequels of these classic works are often faced with the dilemma of whether to continue the tradition or seek new changes. If you choose to continue the tradition and strive to 100% restore the game experience of years ago, it will not only be difficult to attract a new generation of players, but also difficult to say how high commercial expectations; However, if you choose to seek new changes, you not only need to bear the risk of change, but also may face the backlash from the old players of the series.

"Iron Fist of Fury 4" chooses to find a balance between the two.

Although it is difficult to say whether this balance point is chosen properly, there is no doubt that for the "Iron Fist of Fury" series, if you want to continue to develop, "Iron Fist of Fury 4" handed out this answer, is probably the most reasonable way to solve the problem at present - not only taking into account the balance between the continuation of tradition and seeking new changes, but also has enough solid game quality.

And "Iron Fist of Fury 4" this answer sheet is solved in a way that can be derived from every detail of "Iron Fist of Fury 4" to get the final solution.

During the gameplay of Iron Fist of Fury 4, you can clearly see various traces of Iron Fist of Fury 2. It can even be judged that the underlying design of the entire "Iron Fist 4" does not continue "Iron Fist 3", but chooses to be derived from the series' most acclaimed work: "Iron Fist 2".

It can be seen from the positioning and distribution of the main character lineup. "Iron Fist 4" ignored the "Iron Fist 3" in the past mistake - ditching the master grasp and throw skills of the strong character Max, introduced the poor handling of the cyborg Dr. Zhan. Instead, it completely follows the positioning of the protagonists in Iron Fist 2. Police Axel and Blaze are back again, with the same positioning, and the new characters Chellie and Floyd are corresponding to the fast and flexible kid Sammy and the strong man Max who is good at catching and throwing. Even except for Che Li, the other characters are not running this action, completely consistent with the "Iron Fist of Fury 2".

However, this is not to say that Iron Fist 4 completely abandons the various designs of Iron Fist 3 and the original Iron Fist. On the contrary, Iron Fist 4, based on the design ideas of Iron Fist 2, well absorbs and uses the design of Iron Fist 3 and the original Iron Fist.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the combat system. The combat system of "Iron Fist of Fury 4" is clearly a blend of the characteristics of the "Iron Fist of Fury" series of the first three games.

In Iron Fist 4, each character's base attack, jump attack, grab, throw and move are hard and straight, which can almost be equated with the handling feel of Iron Fist 2. In terms of skills, the "offensive move", "defense move" and "floating move" of "Iron Fist 4" combined with the design of the "must kill slot" of "Iron Fist 3", each release will consume a certain amount of health, but it can be restored by attacking the enemy - in contrast, once the enemy hits during this period, then release the health consumed by the "big move". It will also be deducted directly.

The "Iron Fist of Fury 4" also cancelled the "command kill" design in the "Iron Fist of Fury 2", but introduced the concept of "star trick" : by consuming stars, to release a key kill. This design, to some extent, is basically consistent with the "aid shooting" in the original "Iron Fist of Fury". The only difference is that in the "Iron Fist of Fury 4", the scope of the "star trick" is not full screen, and naturally it can not do the "aid guard shooting" clear screen effect. More often, the "star trick" is used as "insurance".

In addition, "Iron Fist of Fury" the original generation of the enemy after the escape action, "Iron Fist of Fury 2" of the accumulation of attacks and a variety of weapons, have been retained in "Iron Fist of Fury 4", so that the whole game play, further plump.

But there are also problems. The team behind Iron Fist 4 probably didn't like Iron Fist 3 all that much -- and let's face it, it wasn't that great. In other words, the production team of "Iron Fist 4" felt that what they did was the real "Iron Fist 3", so they deliberately avoided some of the designs from "Iron Fist 3".

Iron Fist of Fury 4 throws away many of the Settings of the series. For example, the venue design that was present in the original game of Iron Fist of Fury and then revived in Iron Fist of Fury 3 was removed; Another example is the delayed continuity technique in Iron Fist 2; Or the "Iron Fist of Fury 3" must-kill upgrades, weapon specialisation must-kill and multi-line branching story.

Among them, like Iron Fist of Fury 2's delayed reduction of continuous skills, I can probably understand that it is to lower the bar of the game. After all, in this era when the horizontal version of the customs clearance game is not so hot, the delay of continuous skills will be sought after by old players, but its own threshold may indeed cause some players distress.

However, the "Iron Fist of Fury 3" site structure design, kill skill upgrades, weapon specialization kill skill and multi-line branch plot, these would have been able to increase a lot of playability of the game's excellent design - also the "Iron Fist of Fury 3" desirable part, but also in this "Iron Fist of Fury 4" missing, which is some people find it difficult to accept.

Iron Fist 4, with these cuts, is not so much a sequel to Iron Fist 3 as a sequel to Iron Fist 2.

"Iron Fist 2" is very good, but "Iron Fist 3" is not without merit, and these excellent designs should have added a more profound color to "Iron Fist 4". But sadly, it didn't.

Of course, that's not to say that Iron Fist 4 isn't good enough, but that it could be better.

But even so, Furious Iron Fist 4 is still one of the best side-scrolling customs clearance action games you can play right now, and full of emotions.

You know, "Iron Fist of Fury 4" basically will be the previous several roles, all included in the available range. Whether it's old friends Adam, Sammy, Max, Dr. Jen, Shiva, or various protagonists from different versions of the previous games - although a large part of the characters are directly stretching the pixel image of the original.

In addition to these, "Iron Fist of Fury 4" composer list, there is also a "Iron Fist of Fury" series players, but the most familiar name: ancient Yousan.

So, you get the idea.

Iron Fist 4 May not be perfect, but it does its best to recreate the Iron Fist series for what it was originally created for: an arcade game for home consoles. And succeeded in bringing the concept to 2020. Whether you've played Iron Fist of Rage or not, the sheer "arcade" flavor of Iron Fist of Rage 4 is sure to bring back memories of that golden age.