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    Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact Impressions – Still Needs More Time to Cook

    A promising game that needs its magic seen.

    Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact is one of 2025’s highly anticipated fighting games. With the announcement of its delay last year and its planned release for Summer 2025, many fans have been eager for chances to try the game out themselves. Thankfully, I recently had the opportunity to experience a playable demo of the game at Frosty Faustings XVII. With the bit of time I got to play the demo, I have some thoughts and impressions to share about Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact.

    The Latest Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact Build

    the latest build being shown in hunter x hunter: nen x impact

    Yes, you saw the heading correctly; the Frosty Faustings XVII demo was the latest build of the game. While the only playable characters at the time were Gon, Killua, Leorio, Kurapika, Hisoka, Netero, Bisky, Machi, and Uvogin, we also got to experience the Active Tag mechanic. This mechanic is a character switch feature that allows players to switch from one character to another through assists. By pressing the assist button again after calling an assist, you can tag that character in and continue playing with them. This is known as Active Tag or Active Change in other games and is very useful for extending combos, pressure, and even approaching the opponent.

    This mechanic happens very fast, so it’s easy to make it safe. I had fun using other characters and assists to see what I could pull off in certain situations. I know a lot of players felt skeptical about its inclusion when they announced it last year, but I think you could still enjoy other aspects of the game. The game is made for fans of tag fighters like Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid and non-tag fighters like Marvel vs Capcom 3.

    Additionally, this game’s speed feels unique compared to other team-fighting games. It’s not as fast as the Marvel vs Capcom games, but it’s also not the average speed of Dragon Ball FighterZ. It does seem like the developers went out of their way to give the game a distinct feel from other fighting games.

    Overgear Gives Insane Damage

    netero activating overgear in hunter x hunter: nen x impact

    To anyone who played Marvel vs Capcom 3 or Dragon Ball FighterZ, you should be familiar with the comeback mechanics that these games have. Granted, DBFZ‘s Sparking has nothing on MvC3‘s X-Factor, but both accomplish the same thing: drastically change the momentum of a match. Nen x Impact‘s Overgear mechanic seeks to do the same thing, but when a character hits hard, they hit hard!

    To better deal with Overgear, it’s essential to have enough meter to use Nen Stance so that you can block all incoming attacks automatically, even if it’s a mixup. Their Overgear will run out, and you will hopefully have enough meter to capitalize. I did forget to test this out in my playtime, but you can go for a counter-attack right after using Nen Stance called Nen Pact. NenPact is a follow-up attack you can do after having an attack touch your NenStance. With NenStance, players can land high-damaging combos.

    Nen x Impact’s Move List is Very Helpful!

    hunter x hunter: nen x impact character trailers

    One of my favorite features of some modern fighting games is that they have videos and descriptions of each special move in their move list. When I opened up the move list in Nen x Impact, I was pleased to find that this game does the same! What’s unique about how Nen x Impact’s move list is that it explains the properties of special moves. For example, it will mention if a move is an unblockable attack, if it wall-bounces, and much more!

    I think this is an excellent feature for newcomers because not only does it give them a visual to help them identify if they executed the special move correctly, but it also gives them valuable information about the strengths of the move. Upon seeing this, I hope that the training mode also has helpful features for players, such as hitbox data, frame data, multiple recording sequences, and others. There’s a standard now for fighting games to give players as many helpful tools as possible, so Nen x Impact has quite the expectations to live up to.

    Speaking of the menus, when I was going around the characters in the roster, I noticed that every character had 4 colors. I’m not sure if there will only be 4 colors per character at launch, I’m wishing for more because some of these colors could be better. It would even be nice to have a color wheel like Melty Blood, Under Night, and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves do where you can customize your character with a mixture of colors.

    The Game Needs a Beta with Training Mode Badly

    While I’ve had a fun time trying the game out at Frosty Faustings XVII, I can’t help but think that this game needs a beta quickly. All I could really do with my time was mash games with people, but it just wasn’t enough to understand the game’s magic. The auto combo system was interesting, but it was tedious having to hold one button and then mash light, medium, or heavy. On top of that, this game has no motion inputs, so there was a bit of a learning curve with figuring things out. 

    I didn’t want to waste people’s time going through my character’s move list just to understand how to play. This is why I think this game needs a beta that has training mode quickly, because the players need lots of alone time to lab the game out, learn how to play, and find out cool things. The game releases in summer 2025, and to be fair, this game has yet to take the FGC by storm heavily. If the developers continue to release playable demos of the game at offline events, I highly suggest having training mode setups to where players can find the true beauty of the game.

    Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact will release in summer 2025 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.

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