One Strike

Fantastic in singleplayer but takes a lot of fiddling with the controller configuration to get working. Two player mode does not work. Developer has stated they do not intend to fix this major oversight. Rather disappointing given the high quality of the music and gameplay otherwise.

It's that retro game that you get for less than a Coke so why not. Half an hour ago I finished the game three times, 2 in arcade mode, 1 in 1 kills mode, both in easy difficulty. I won't say it is a fighting game because you only get one attack move of each character, and one hit will kill for you and your opponent, timing and when to attack/defiance is the core. Like most fighting games, characters in One Strike are not all that balanced, from the character selection page I picked that guy with a long katana to hit my opponent at a longer distance, and he gave me the first successful run. As the achievement popped up, I noticed players using another guy had the highest accomplished rate and that's when I realized Hangaku, the guy who uses a ridiculously long hook is almost a cheat in the game. His hook can go more than half of the screen, with the longest melee weapon in the game I win easily in 5 seconds. The only guy who may be a threat is the ninja throws Shuriken, but he wouldn't do it at the beginning of the game. As a result, anyone who picks Hangaku in Easy difficulty is very likely to beat the game. I also bought the DLC but the extra maps/characters do not show up. If any devs read this review please fix it. If you enjoy retro games this could be a good pick. I recommend this game. [u] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/WelcomeWhyNotGames] My curator page[/url][/u]

It's an amazing tribute to old school fight games! The strongest points of One Strike are the fact of each duel is a mini heart attack at the end, the weight of animations and the screenshake create a very good mood when you cut some necks or strip a belly off! The music and SFX are dramatic and the pixel art graphics are beautiful! Each character has a very particular way of fight, wich is great cause you have to try a lot of different tatics to win. This game has a very cool mood into the samurai way-of-life!

Really cool game. I always really liked the one hit death match format and this kind of gory samurai themes, and this game handles them pretty well, I gotta check 2 strikes too, it looks pretty amazing so far. also if you like this game check slice dice rice too.

One Strike is a simple, yet complex, 1 on 1 fighting game. All it takes is one hit and you're out! It features 7 characters, each with their own style of fighting. It is great to pick up and play a few games with your friends. It offers multiplayer and single player, and some game modes that offer a little variety. It is a great casual fighter to play in small sessions, and definitely worth $4.99. I also own this on the Nintendo Switch, which is where it shines best. If you happen to own a Nintendo Switch, I'd recommend that version for its portability.

It's a very limited game for the price. You can literally beat the hardest difficulty with one hand and looking from the side of your eyes. Unless you have it on a local venue with many other players to play with, it's not gonna last longer than 10mins without a online multiplayer. Great game, but not worth the money spent on it. Hopefully Two Strikes will make this better, but the differences there already worry me a bit (heavy and light attacks on a 1 "strike" 2D game don't work as well if you have 2 strikes for light attacks and 1 for heavy. The third game will have 3 low, 2 medium and 1 heavy for death? Come on.

A solid 1 hit ko fighting game. the different modes add a needed level of replayability.

Extremely simple, extremely fun. One Strike is the fighting game I keep coming back to, even more than all the modern gorgeous 2D fighters out there.

Sort of plays like Bushido Blade from PS1. Although there's no dismemberment like there was in that game. You get hit once, you die. It's an easy to understand but difficult to master game. You're constantly switching between blocking, attacking, and backing away. One wrong move means death. My one complaint is I wish they're was more content. The DLC adds a few more things but the game still feels really bare bones. I'm hoping they release more content in the future as I liked this game.

So, this was a pleasant surprise. I had it on my wishlist for a while and finally picked it up, and wow. One Strike is a retro style 2D brawler. The graphics are very retro and the soundtrack is an absolutely kicking 16 bit sound one. Fantastic to listen to. The gameplay is simple, yet really deep. All the charaters can move, attack, block, and can either dash or do a unique move. Each character feels very different, which is something not a lot of fighting games can pull off. They each feel distinct. Unfortunately they aren't very balanced. Kenji, is a basic swordsman who is just medicore at everything. Meanwhile you have another character with a ball and chain and ridiiculous range, whose only downside is being unable to block. The games DLC adds additoinal characters that can throw weapons and have wide range attacks and attack much quicker then anyone else, respectively. The balance is defintely off, but it's still fun. The game has four modes, an arcade mode with every charater and five lives each. Which works out to either 35 or 50 fights depending on if you have the DLC. Problem is, there's no continues. So if you get to like fight 30 of 35 and mess up you need to start all over again. There's also a "One Life" mode where you fight everyone one after another in a gauntlet and you die in one hit, and so do they. There's a tournament, which is self explantory. And a team battle mode, where you get 3 fighters to use and face a team of another 3. And a versus mode. So there's a LOT to do here. Given the price, it's absolutely worth picking up. But it's gonna take many strikes before you end up mastering this one.

First this looked like trash to me, but surprise, surprise, this had indeed depth and requires skill to master it. The graphics and the music are not my thing, but the animations are fine. I totally hate the controls but with a little help of a custom controller layout all is well and good.

Good concept, terrible controls, CPU on hard can input actions faster than your hardware can literally keep up. Laughable.

A fun proof of concept easy to pick up arcade fighting game. The features and game modes are quite limited, but for a game this cheap and simple, I give it a pass. There are techs and tricks to be learned here of course, but you'll find the exploits soon enough. Parts of the soundtrack are really good tho.

Hey there! I want to mention this right away befor getting into the meat: I have the Switch-Version of this game, and there I ,as of now, have at least 30 HOURS of In-Game-Time. YES, 30 HOURS. I, in fact, held a Tournament with some friends and uploaded the whole thing on YouTube! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj5vX4-TmWk&list=PLvotN0kFDmT15YJajdSxn5vXrRuc8wSZf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- General Info: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay: Without Further ado: This game is a gem. I've gotten it for I think 2€ on sale, and I don't regret any cent spend on this game. One Strike is a charming Retro-Themed 4-Button-Fighting-Game. No Jumps, No Cross-Ups, No Supers, No Special-Moves, No Team-Shenanigans. Pure 1 on 1 Weaponbased Combat. And One Strike delievers on that like nothing! Yes, yes, the Game has a really tight Theming and Identity, if you do not like Fighting Games that are "basic" and don't allow for hours of Training-Mode-Sweating, this won't be for you. If you want to put time into learning extremely long combos or crazy Knockdown-Set-Ups like most modern Fightinggames want you to, you won't like this game. If you like the more strategic and more methodical gameplay-aspect of Fightinggames, you will like One Strike. With only 1 Point of Health to spare, meaning that each and every attack landed by your opponent will kill you, you have to be more thoughtfull about positioning, attacking and the timing of your block. Yes, I wrote timing of you block. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Controls: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The game is played in a simple matter: You get an Attack-Button, a Block-Button, a Left-Dash and a Right-Dash-Button, plus moving Forward and Backward with the D-Pad / Control-Stick. You are not able to "hold" your guard, whenever you press block, your character will block by any means, just to leave themselves vulnerable afterwards. The same goes with attacks: Pressing the Attack-Button will also leave you quite vulnerable, if you've missed your opponent that is! The Dashes are mostly for Positioning, Yet the Developer decided to use the Dashes to give Certain Characters additional Attacks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Theming, Graphics and Music: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay: I HAVE to mention this right now: The music is great. You cannot believe how often I've played against good friends of mine, moving / vibing to the backgroundmusic and having a great feeling. The music brings a lot of hype and tension to the game, feels very distinct from stage to stage and just feeds into the overall theming of Medieval Fantasy Japan. The locations you will fight over your life also range from a wide variety, from a Bridge inside of a Village with Viewers in the Background to a Seaside-Stone-Cliff, everything is there and fits perfectly. The graphics are lovely to look at, reminding of the old SNES-Fighting-Games and having TONS of charm, if you are into it, of course. Tho since One Strike is definitley younger than the mentioned 16-Bit-Console, all the animations One Strike has to Over are Smooth, very Detailed and extremely fluent. Also: The character-select-screen shows Paintings of your Character, which is really charming, and while it doesn't really fit into the retro-aspect that well in my opinion, still makes for a better vieweing of the character you will maybe play as, since the Pixel-Art-Sprites do not show many facial features. In-Fact, the Sprites are Faceless. And I, personally, have come to really like that design, since you will be able to still feel the emotions of each character within their Attack-,Dash- and Defend-Animations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Character-Diversity: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, with 1 Button for Attacks, 1 Button already dedicated for Blocking and 2 Dash-Buttons, the Characters CANNOT be that different from each other, right? WRONG! Even without the "Rise of the Dragons"-DLC, the initial Roster of 7 Characters contains different Fightinggame-Archetpypes. From more Zoning-Based Characters such as Hangaku to the defensive Walls like Soujirou but also the Jack-of-All-Trades, in this case Kenji, are in this game. Now, the Controls are Universal, yes, BUT: One Strikes Roster features characters that trade their Forward-Dash for another Special-Attack (Oni), their Block for a quick close-ranged Attack (Hangaku) or even, in case of Dragon, their Block for the ability to become invisible. The characters feel very distinct from one another, and most of them, if not all, are surprisingly recognizable! I won't be going over all the characters, but you can trust me, and probably each other person who has played One-Strike for more than 10 minutes, that the characters feel very different and have different Strengths and Weaknesses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gamemodes: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Single-Player: Now, the Single-Player features 1 mode abscent from multiplayer: "The Only Life" Where you basically want to defeat all Characters while only having one life.Getting hit once means you have to restart the Mode, not unlike any other Fighting-Games' Survival-Mode. Arcade, Tournament and Team-Duel are also Playable in Single-Player, just against computercontrolled Opponents. Multiplayer: Arcade: Each Player chooses a Character, gets 5 life and the first Person to lose all of them, loses the game. Team Duel: Each Player chooses a Team of 3 different Characters, then orders them to their liking and proceeds to play against the other Players' Team. There are no "Supports" or Tag-in-Mechanics, the only difference to Arcade is that each character has exactly one life, and once taken out, cannot be played anymore. Thus leaving the next-chosen Character to take down the opposing team. Once your 3rd Character gets hit, you have lost the Team Duel. Tournament: Compete in a Single-Elimination-Tournament to become the Champ! I have to confess, this Mode is the Mode I've played the least amount, so I might rework this part later on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- One Strike has become a Party-Staple amongst me and my friends. The game won't be the top of the conversation that often, but once it is, it is with a lot of confidence and great memories. I personally just can recommend you this game, if you have the people to play it with, if you have opportunities to just play and enjoy this game for like 1 hour once in a while. I cannot see myself grinding this games single-player, but I am sure down for a nice First-to-2 in Arcade-Mode when asked for.

Extremely well balanced samurai Nidhogg. It's an early Neo-Geo demake of Bushido Blade out of time.

One of the game's labbel is "casual". That is misleading. While is really easy learning to play, the more you play, the deeper it gets. Play it with a friend, and you will get amazed at how frequently you both will be discovering how to counter this or that unit or technique, that minutes ago seemed unbeatable. That cycle will repeat and repeat until you both will be playing sword duels that will make Kenshin Himura look like a noob. This is a excelent couch game, especially for the price.

When looking for a fighting game, there are a few requirements that I hope to encounter before making a purchase. Solid mechanics, a good mix of different characters, some depth to explore and an interesting premise and/or concept to make it stand out. One Strike have all of these and as a result, it's unquestionably a good game. It's sharp, has a good learning curve and also distills its fighting game core to its basic components, making for a good introductory game for anyone that wants to get into the genre. This is worthy of applause, since fighting games are difficult to get into at best and can be outright hostile to new players at worst. And yet, as I write this, I'm unsure if I should recommend this game or not. You see, One Strike is exactly what it looks and sounds like: a fighting game where everyone dies in one hit. Nothing less, but sadly, not really anything more. There are four singleplayer modes that all end up being (basically) one of three things: matches against AI where you either have five lives, three lives or one life. That's it. No story, no online component, nothing. As much as I like it, I feel like there could have been much more there, and should have been. On top of that, the UI is barebones to a frustrating level. There's no "ESC menu" when you're in a match, meaning no quick restart and no quitting out of a match if you misclicked and entered the wrong mode (for instance). There are also a number of menu screens between the starting menu and you actually getting into a game, including a mode description which only has a function the first time you go through it. This makes going into a game slow and cumbersome, which would be fine if it was necessary - but it isn't. That's what makes it so frustrating, as the game deserves better than having these elements of irritation in there. There are also no options. At all. So there's that. If you're going into this game as a fighting game, then it's very good. In terms of pure mechanics, it's fun, and the different difficulty modes have a great balance to them. If you're out to learn the basics of fighting games, then it's also good. It might also be decent if you have a friend to play with. That is why my review is a recommendation, because for what it is, it's good. But for anyone else who might only want a game to play? Sadly, I'm obliged to say that you just won't get the content here. For the general audience, this is probably a pass.

(The below video is of my FIRST first impressions of the gameplay, the review after more time spent with it follows) https://youtu.be/WJHWQtyeRLg A novel one on one fighter in the vein of Bushido Blade, Dive Kick and Nidhogg where the key to victory is not with insane complex combos or special moves but with quick timing and anticipating your opponent's own moves because as the title implies, it only takes ONE STRIKE to down a combatant. While it appears relatively simple on the surface, each fighter has their own unqiue movements and attacks, making for a variety of match ups and thus strategies. In the mold of "easy to learn, hard to master", it actually makes it a sell for both casual and hardcore players as multiplayer with friends can easily add as much depth as you are prepared to give it in return. Full disclosure, I was only able to play a sizable amount of the single player only, yet the appeal of verses mode is clear. Against the AI, it did provide a good challenge, with multiple difficulties and modes including arcade and tournaments. While there is a great variety to each fighter in terms of both movement and attacks, adding further to different strategies, I did find some easier to play as than others. In one case not only was I able to stream roll through arcade with ease, when the AI played as the same character, they also did the same to me. As a result, I do question some balance. Granted, there may perhaps be a strategy to it but when the AI also struggles I am left wondering. However this is far from a deal breaker, rather something I personally noticed in single player at the time. The presentation is an interesting mix of 8-bit graphics yet 16-32-bit music that will not be for everyone but I'll argue it is fitting with the simple but effective gameplay and overall charming style. There is also very well hand drawn art that somewhat clashes with the pixels but it does add character to each fighter. Despite the pixelated visuals, there is variety and distinct colour, with really only a couple of level and character combination blending a tad more than the rest. The music though is pretty stand out and nails the vibe it is going for, a particular point of praise! Overall, it does effectively combine an retro-presentation with well crafted timing-based fighting gameplay, making it perfect for enoyable bursts and no doubt more fun with friends, potentially with even more depth and length. At a very low price point, I would recommend trying it for yourself and supporting this developer. Great stuff!

Nostalgia everywhere! This game gave me goosebumps while I remembered all my golden days playing Master System, Mega Drive, Gameboy and other video games. But talking about the game... The game is really well polished and balanced. You have one chance to defeat your opponent and mastering the defense, attack and dash timing is essential. At first you can think: "What the! This character is too easy", but them you get to play at HARD difficulty and you see that the game is pretty well balanced and hard to master. And oh, the music.... it's just amazing. I actually stayed minutes in the game title screen just to listen to the full song. All of the songs are great, and also the sound effects. The graphics are really good. I like the way the developers balanced the high def graphics with the 8 bits. You actually see that the 8 bit was a design choice and the developers have the skills to deliver highly detailed graphics. The controls could be better, though. Be able to rebind them would be really cool. I'm giving an 8.5/10 to this game. Looking forward to see it flourish and new deliveries from these developers.

This is a very good little indie game! I don't see many indie fighting games, so as a fan of the genre that's a good thing to have. The one-hit mechanic is SUPER cool given the samurai setting, very adequate, you feel the tension in each match, even they being so short (less than 10 seconds many times). PROS - One-hit-kill mechanic that sets this game apart from most else - Interesting characters with unique moves and different combat styles - Very short matches make up for a unique experience in a fighting game - Nice pixelart characters and environments - Little indie game to kill time and play with friends - Low Pricing CONS - Few characters to play. Probably the developer will add more over time - It may get a little repetitive playing against AI for some time, so bring some friends! Definetely worth it if you like samurai, fighting games, local co-op, pixelart or if you're just a nice guy who likes to support indie devs. Honestly I have never played a game like this.

Very fun and addicting. The game might seem simple at first, but the characters can be very complex and lead to multiple strategies. Also there is a nice motivation to play all modes with all character so that you can get all your accolades.

It's addicting, awesome, and multiplayer. Please pick it up! It's cheap and goes on sale. Thank you Devs!

The game seemed cool but without proper controller support it is essentially unplayable. EDIT: While the issue seems to not be fixed yet, the developer is working to get it fixed and it feels unfair to not recommend the game when it's evident the dev does listen when there are issues, and works to fix them ASAP.

This is a nice fun quick game. One Strike surely lives by it's name and you'll be able to play really quick matches. Perfect for playing when you have little time to spare. The songs and graphics are great.

Co-op mode review https://youtu.be/DDQdw4QmSIw Pros - Easy to pick up. - Fun and exciting. Cons - Game mechanics is too shallow. - Fun for awhile, gets old preety fast. Final - Recommended or buy it during a sale. - Skip this game if you want something harder and deeper.

I bought two games from the developer(One Strike, Two Strikes) and gave him two best reviews. After adding friend on 1.31th.2023, i made some feedback and suggested updating a beautiful art cover of One Strike. One Strike has a ugly art cover which is not completely filled with the cover frame, there shows a large black edge. On weekend, the developer always had some dubious pretext to pretend to update. For example(Friend message): he said he was busy in doing a job when i found he was playing game; or he said he was making dinner but i still found he was playing game. (he said he was doing a job or making dinner, and game shows him playing status) ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, the developer has never told a lie!!! Over a month, today is 2.20th.2023, it has still not been updated.On 3.18th.2023, i had left messages several times, but the developer haven't replied me. Just now, i found that he deleted me and the art cover still have no update. The developer had given an absolute assurance that it would update a beautiful art cover of One Strike, but so far he has not done... Two Strikes is EA Beta-Testing game, i thought he would run away with money according to sincerity and honesty from the developer.

Do Not Buy this if you plan to use it with a Steamlink, No Controllers work regardless if you enable or disable ps,xbx, or generic support. I have yet to hear anything back from the dev since I posted about this weeks ago. Only way you can use a controller on steamlink is if your willing to go through the pain of binding keyboard buttons to your Controller. You have been warned~!

One Strike looks like a crappy 2D retro pixel fighter/versus arcade game, but it isn't. It's more of a crappy 2D retro pixel QTE/twitch game. There's no health bars, it's one hit, one kill, so there's none of the interesting component of these games where you adjust your strategy and work hard picking the right moves at the right times...instead, this is a game of watching the enemy then striking in response to the right stimuli... yeah, it's a QTE reflex game. And it's bad, real bad. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The artwork here is terrible, it's a blend of old retro pixel "art" used as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics, with intersitual screens featuring some of the most amateurish "Baby's First Wacom Tablet" style drawings I've ever hurt my eyes on. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget to arrange someone who can do graphics properly, or lack of talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result of these decisions. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. Because this is designed for consoles, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the inferior console gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the console-centric developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for consoles forces upon a game. Once more, console peasants have made gaming worse for everyone. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 6 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. One Strike has the gamer gouging price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.

The game is super simple and fun! First played it on switch and bought it on steam. The only thing missing is button remapping

This is a great rgae indusing game for playing whit friends (even better on swich) if your firiends are at your house or something

This game is a mixture of frustrating and one leg up on a stump looking proudly up into the air rewarding. This game teaches you that hesitation is defeat, sorry kiddos. Whenever I play this game with others we're all laughing and getting super competetive talking like old warriors such as "IT'LL TAKE YOU YEAAAAAAARS BEFORE YOU CAN CHALLENGE ME!" or " Did you not know that the reason I won was because I can hear the wing beat of a butterfly 4 years away? My only problem with this game is..... WHY IS IT NOT ONLINE!?

The fighting mechanics are simple but brilliant and very addictive. Each fighter has peculiar moves which leads to many ways and strategies in game.

Simple, polished, and fun game with an amazing soundtrack that really needs more love.

[h1]SUMMARY[/h1] Doesn't have online. [h1]OVERALL SCORE[/h1] Not Recommended [h1]REPLAY VALUE[/h1] Above Average

A really fun little game. Perfect for when you've got some down time with friends and just want a quick and easy good time.

Very addicting! Love the retro-style gameplay and simple controls

Bonk stronkem is the best character, HANDS DOWN.

good

fun

bad