The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle is a turn-based tactical RPG set in ancient China. It is inspired by old classics from the 1990s and has combat that looks similar to Fire Emblem and Advance Wars and exploration like a Final Fantasy game. This is a good combination if you ask me, as I love Fire Emblem games and don’t mind the occasional Final Fantasy game. It sounds like the perfect recipe, and in most cases, it is.
RPG Customisation
Before anything can start in The World of Kung Fu, players are tasked with creating a character. For a retro-looking game, there are many options to go through and I felt like I was creating a Dragon Age character. You can choose body type, mouth, nose, clothes, hair and more which is hefty for a 2D sprite, not that much of it is noticeable except for in the character’s portrait, like the character’s mouth and nose for instance.
The customisation even comes down to the weapon you wield, your character’s backstory and the kung fu they do, which all comes into play when the actual game starts. Although, when it all came down to it, I just made a character that wore a mask with no weapons. Yes, I made a basic faceless character, but I didn’t really see a point in customising a character I would mostly see as a 2D sprite, even though my portrait shows how little I cared for them. Do I regret it? Yes, but I got used to them and was not going to make a new character after having played for some time.
Don’t ask me the origin story I picked, because I can’t remember, I also can’t remember my starting kung fu because in no time I had a bunch of new ones. I think it was something like 1000 Palms, the art of the fist? Okay, I will stop guessing, but I know it was one without a weapon. The customisation doesn’t stop there, you will be forever customising, like what styles of kung fu you have to your party, and tactics. It is a turn-based tactical game with lots of ways to play.
Story
The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle is a complicated story. The gist of it is that there are four styles of Kung fu and the lands are at war with each other over something that I can’t remember. Although, like a lot of modern RPGs, the story is choice-based. Do you choose to fight for a bunch of street heroes or fight for the court, the choice is yours, and depending on that choice will change the course of the story.
To use an example, I fought for the street heroes as two of the characters were companions, I had been travelling with for a bit before I got to this choice, mind you this is the first few hours of the game. Choosing to fight for the street heroes means a few things, one of which is that a thief you meet will fight for the court, even though he just had a scuffle with said court trying to steal from them. This is due to there being eight characters at the time in the room and his wanting to make it even, if you choose the court he will fight for the street heroes.
Apart from the thief swapping teams depending on your decision, I am not sure what else changes, I assume it is big because it determines who you are fighting, but The World of Kungfu is a long game that I haven’t even finished long, so to then go through it a second time, and a third, might just be too much for me. Great if you can, because I would love to know what the alternate routes are like.
The choice-based system is great, but the overall story is all over the place and half the time complicated. I felt like I was given so much information about the history of the world that I forgot most of it. I honestly forgot what the war was about. If I had to take a guess, I assume it is about the different fighting styles and the four techniques, but I could be wrong as there was so much going on in the story that I mostly got lost. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it to a degree when I knew what was going on, but most times I wasn’t too invested in the story.
Gameplay
While the story isn’t The World of Kunfu’s strong point, the gameplay on the other hand is, once you get the hang of it. Like the story, gameplay can be a tad confusing which I think is due to the game being almost entirely different from most games in the genre at least when taking the Switch version into consideration. When I think of most turn-based tactical games, they are pretty straightforward.
Move the character to spot, attack with character; it is all so simple, here not so much. For this example, I am going to use Fire Emblem. When playing a Fire Emblem game, the player selects a character and moves them to attack an enemy; it all just flows. In The World of Kungfu, this isn’t the case, things aren’t so straightforward. Think of The World of Kungfu more like a turn-based RPG where each character is in a sequence on when they can perform a move. While it may look like a Fire Emblem game set on a grid it is more like a turn-based RPG with character turns over player turns, if that makes sense.
With that in mind, things start to make more sense, and you get in a sort of gameplay rhythm. It is still complicated because here comes the kicker. You press A to confirm where your character is to move and then you would assume you press A again to attack. Wrong, instead you need to press Y which comes up with a list of moves you can perform. For the main character their moves can change depending on the styles you have equipped, other characters have their own moves they can perform.
Depending on the move you select, the grid will now show you where your attack range is. Once you select a square within that range, you are then shown that attacks reach like whether it will hit more than one square. I say square because you can choose to attack an empty square. Useful if there is an enemy near that square, but useless if there is no one around.
If you can’t or don’t perform an attack then you can choose to end your turn or select an item which each have their own button. Honestly, once I got into it, I was fine, but I think the first few hours I was trying to play it like a Fire Emblem game and that was my biggest problem.
Apart from the combat, the rest of the game is about exploring the world doing side quests, oh and collecting more Kungfu manuals, which always come in handy. This is all RPG territory and what makes it even better is your companions, which there are a lot of, are all interesting.
Sadly I don’t know how many companions there are but it feels like a lot and I assume some will come and go. Some may only join depending on your choices, I could be wrong, but it definitely feels like this. In saying that, from my understanding, it is a fifty-plus hour game and I am about ten-plus hours in (It took me some time to get into the game).
Conclusion
Not everyone is going to like The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle as it can feel like there is so much confusing information coming at you. Those that do give it the time to absorb may actually enjoy it as there is a lot to like, it is just overshadowed by over complications with the system and story. If I am being honest, I have just started getting into it, but others may take longer.
The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle is available now. PR Stride provided a code for review on behalf of the developer.
