If you want to introduce somebody to virtual reality for the first time, Beat Saber is a reliable option. It’s easy to read, the locomotion is stationary, and its rhythm-driven nature makes for a familiar greeting. Whether or not that person has played similar games before, the premise is simple enough: swing the swords where the arrows tell you to with the beat.
On paper, Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower is a different beast. Instead of gazing at colorful mappings of songs, you’re punching your way up a skyscraper, defeating dozens of enemies in quick succession. Yet, the higher I climbed, the more familiar this endeavor felt, following a structure akin to that of Beat Saber-likes. The discovery shone a light on a predicament that seems to permeate the VR space as a whole. The chances of success in VR game development for novel ideas are slim, so games are bound to build on tested foundations instead.
VR-established genres, from rhythm games to fitness apps, have set a standard that is difficult to abandon. Even in cases like Path of Fury, a game about kung fu fighting, it makes sense to follow these conventions even if it can occasionally feel constraining as well.
Beat by Beat
It takes Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower no time to showcase the gist of the experience. During a moody tutorial in which you use a goon as a punching bag, you’re instructed about the general movement. Left hand is blue, right hand is red. Markers appear on different parts of the body, and you need to match your knuckles with them accordingly. Some don’t have a color, inviting punches with either fist indiscriminately.
In that vein, Path of Fury is similar to combat-heavy games like Batman: Arkham Shadow than those with more free roam movement, like Skydance’s Behemoth, for example. You’re told where and when to punch. Unlike Arkham Shadow, which mixes this scripted framework with the series’ existing combat flair encouraging you to use gadgets and follow quick reactions to maintain a combo streak, Path of Fury is more streamlined. You only use your fists to attack and your open palms to deflect upcoming hits.
Aside from swinging your arms, there’s little movement involved elsewhere. Evoking the spirit of light gun shooters, from Time Crisis to The House of the Dead, your smackdowns happen on-rails. Fight an enemy until you knock them down, and the game transitions to the next battle after a short fade-to-black. Pair this with telegraphed points of impact for your fists, and you’ll quickly feel like you’re hitting notes that are coming your way through a virtual fretboard.
Path of Fury’s biggest strength is translating this structure to the thrill and pressure of back-to-back brawling. Sometimes, you’re prompted to deal multiple hits in quick succession, but some enemies require punches with more impact. Especially ones that are way bigger than the protagonist in height and size. The further you progress, the more “special” foes you’ll encounter, with clear patterns that you have to memorize to deflect and counterattack properly. The boss in the second stage, for example, would punish me for missing an area of impact, forcing me to endure another chain of attacks until it was my turn again.
Furthermore, some fights resemble having to deal with double or triple notes at the same time, with multiple enemies on screen. During such cases, you end up having to repeat attacks with the same hand following, you guessed it, another pattern. Your speed is rewarded, too, with some areas of impact appearing only after successfully blocking an attack, and only for a short window.
In the grand scheme of things, Path of Fury delivers its fantasy with grace. Getting through levels requires precision, speed, and endurance, such as in real-life fights. The abundance of pattern memorization, as well as rhythm, however, makes it feel like a coat of paint over existing VR experiences. The setting and objectives may be different, but everything else is familiar.
Saying that Path of Fury doesn’t offer anything novel would be a disservice. When you’re in the swing of things, its blood-pumping fantasy excels, but it’s also not wrong to see it as yet another iteration on existing ideas. It’s a game that demands confidence in your skills to succeed, even if you can feel a sense of hesitation in pushing beyond the current norm of VR gaming in the walls of every room of the skyscraper.
Every session of Path of Fury ends with the same ritual. You wipe your headset lenses, push your hand across your sweating eyebrows, and look at the calorie count on your watch. This is familiar territory for VR – you’ve probably repeated this ritual already in numerous other games – and you’ll likely do it again during the next few years, whether you’re in a skyscraper or following the beat of a song.
Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower is available now on the Meta Quest platform.
