By now, many feel a little indifferent when it comes to the concept of Battle Royale games, but there is still some room to expand on the team battle genre with different concepts. this is what My Hero Ultra Rumble, a battle royale featuring My Hero Academia characters, aims to achieve. And Bandai Namco is hosting an Open Beta later this week to gauge how players engage with this unique take on the 3-man, 8-team battle arena experience.
Take a look at the Open Beta Trailer:
The first thing you will notice is that the English Dub voice actors are here, something that isn’t present in many anime games aside from flagship titles and a select few others. The next thing you will notice is that this version of the Battle Royale game has a whole different look and feel to it as players engage in 3-man (or woman) teams against a total of eight teams. Each character from the manga-turned-anime features their unique sets of powers and abilities which will make each of them feel vastly different from one another.
While characters like Kendo have a decent offense, her powers also lend to a pretty cool defense in a shield-like barrier to protect incoming projectiles from hitting her or any nearby teammates. Kendo’s big hands also allow her to throw other players over obstacles or barriers. Other characters like Tenya Ida have a diverse set of powers from offensive leg strikes or speed for quick getaways to recover health or to revive a downed teammate.
Ultra Rumble boasts a modest roster consisting of many of whom you would expect. The current known list of playable characters are: Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, Ochaco Uraraka, Tenya Iida, Shoto Todoroki, Tsuyu Asui, All Might, Itsuka Kendo, Denki Kaminari, Cementoss, Mt Lady, Tomura Shigaraki, Dabi, Himiko Toga, and Mr. Compress. However, this isn’t even 24 total characters which means that either there will be a lot more to choose from when the game gets its official release, or there will be duplicate characters on the field. We have many questions about how this works but hopefully the roster expands beyond the current list as it seems rather lean so far.
Each character is categorized as one of 5 archetypes: Strike, Assault, Rapid, Technical, and Support. “The strengths of each character are completely different depending on their unique Quirk.” Depending on who you choose to play with, you can also get experience growth which leads to unlocking new characters and even cosmetics for them. But we also still have a lot more questions about all that.
The Open Beta for the game runs exclusively from May 25th to June 1st on PS4, which is a major drag considering we really should be abandoning last-gen hardware by now rather than making new games for it. Plus, Bandai Namco isn’t exactly known for publishing quality anime games outside of a handful of AAA titles so we worry that Ultra Rumble may get the same treatment as so many others and be forgotten a month or two after release.
To be honest, the game didn’t really strike a chord with us but after seeing more gameplay trailers and the playable roster along with what each character can do, we are actually looking forward to giving this one a try. Hopefully, Bandai Namco pushes developer Byking Inc. to really put the effort in because if done right, this game could be a total banger.
My Hero Ultra Rumble comes to PS4, Nintendo Switch, XBO, and PC. No word on the final release date but you can join the Open Beta later this week on May 26th.
