Hwaaachaaa!
That’s the best kung-fu impression I can do in writing. I wouldn’t say I’m a die-hard kung-fu flick fan, but I do enjoy them occasionally. And like others, the kung-fu genre has gotten its share of video game incarnations. Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao is one of them, albeit not the most successful one.
Invincible Tiger is an Arcade title by Namco Bandai Games America for the X360 and PS3. Like any quality kung-fu flick from the 70s, the story is fairly linear: There’s an ancient artifact known as the Star of Destiny that gives its user control over an army of immortal warriors, and the Evil Overlord has come to claim it. It is up to the former Legendary Warrior, Han Tao to recover the Star of Destiny from the Evil Overlord.

The gameplay is your basic 2D brawler. You have the punch, kick and jump buttons for your basic maneuvers. With a combination of the punch and kick buttons you can string three hit combos. Pressing the () button allows you to interact with glowing objects, which I’ll explain later.
There’s no side-scrolling in Invincible Tiger; all of the action takes place in a single area. Theses areas are fairly large with multiple tiers. For example, the first stage puts you in front of an old chinese house. You can fight on the ground, the second floor balcony, or you can take your brawl on to the roof a la Croughing Tiger. The glowing objects I mentioned earlier can be vines hanging down, or doors you can go into to access another tier. You can also pick up barrels, pots, and somtimes weapons that enemies have dropped. Once you have cleared the area of all the enemies, you move onto a boss.

As you fight off hordes of thugs, thieves and ninjas, your Yin Yang gauge fills up. The circular gauge can fill up in two different ways; the white bar fills up with offensive actions like attacking, and the black bar fills up with defensive maneuvers, like dodging, or even getting hit. This gauge does a couple of different things. You can use it to heal yourself when you’ve taken damage by meditating. Or, you can fill it up to unleash Hyperstate, where Han’s attacks do more damage with speed increase. The more balanced your gauge is, the longer your hyperstate lasts (hence the Yin Yang). This gauge also serves yet another purpose. If you keep the gauge filled, it acts as a point multiplier. Speaking of points, you get different multipliers for meeting different requirements, such as varying you attacks, keeping your Yin Yang meter balanced, and killing as many enemies as possible without taking a hit.

This game also provides a multiplayer mode both offline and online, where you can team up with a friend (or stanger) to take on the Evil Overlord and his goons. In a co-op game, you have separate health bars, but share the same lives and the same Yin Yang gauge, calling for some stratgey and planning.
So, first the good. It’s well presented. The backgrounds look cool and are very reminiscent of a kung-fu flick, with barrels and pots that the hero can use to wreck havoc or make his escape. You seen vertical lines run across the screen at times that really recreate the feel of an old flick. A cool visual feature the title offers is the ability to set 3D settings. Through the Main and Pause menus you can choose from two different 3D settings: Anaglyph 3D that functions on all TVs and Digital 3D that requires a compatible TV and possibly an emitter. This definitely adds to the visual experience.
However, no matter how sweet a game looks, unless it has a good story or plays really well, it’s just NOT enjoyable. Obviously, the storyline is a falls a bit short in carrying the game through. So it’s gotta be in the gameplay. Unfortunately, the gameplay in Invincible Tiger doesn’t quite cut it either. But its not the concepts that I mentioned earlier that fall short; it’s the execution.
The biggest issue I had with this title is the controls. They feel really sloppy. In the initial stages, the waves of enemies are smaller, and don’t provide too much of a problem. But as you progress, enemies become tougher and more in number, and that’s when you really start to have out-of-body experiences. Here’s what I mean: Like any good ol’ hardcore beat-em ups, enemies try to trap you between them. And like any hardcore beat-em up character, Han has a combo that attacks both sides. But that attack only comes out on the third strike of a combo. As I’m pressing the right combination of buttons, Han is sometimes caught in an animation (or sometimes he’s just standing there), and the first input doesn’t register. So while I’m trying to do one combo, Han starts doing another combo, the result of which is him being beaten silly. After awhile, you just start to give up on strategically using combos, and just mashing. This can get old pretty quick. After a bout an hour or two of gameplay, the action just started getting repetitive, and frustrating.
But the boss fights are another story. You actually need to strategically dodge and attack at the right moments to inflict damage. There are a total of five bosses in the game, and each challenge you with a unique strategy that you must employ to defeat them. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t get frustrating at times. But the frustration doesn’t get in the way of the fun and satisfaction you gain from defeating the boss.

Now let me set it straight that I love beat-em up games. I really do. Even though I get seriously frustrated at times, it all seems worth it at the end. But with Invincible Tiger, the satisfaction didn’t quite even out with the frustration. The game looks great and has some great sound effects. But the gameplay gets repetitive quick, and the sloppy controls result in a lot of frustration. The online co-op capabilities are pretty sweet, but again, you encounter the same issues you would in single player.
If you’re a die hard kung-fu junkie and want a video game fix, or you like that drop of frustration in your beat-em ups, this game may suit you well. This game had a lot of potential, but could not quite tap into it all in its execution.
Our Score: 6.5 /10
Great potential, not so great execution.
*Although I did write about multiplayer co-op, I was not able to play it. I didnt’ have anybody to play it with on my console, and after about 45 min in a lobby, I decided to give up. We’ll update the article as soon as I get some multiplayer actions.
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