One Punch Man has won the hearts of anime/manga fans out there for the last few years and for good reason. It’s an awesome series that pays homage to hero shows but equally makes fun of them in smart ways. That’s why when Oasis Games announced a One Punch Man game—in this case, One Punch Man: Road to Hero—we were all onboard to try this title out. One-part gacha game and one-part RPG, One Punch Man: Road to Hero should be the best gacha game ever released…right? Well, we will answer that question below in our full review of One Punch Man: Road to Hero!

Based on the hit series, One Punch Man: Road to Hero gives players control of the favorite heroes—and villains—from the franchise. Create the ultimate team of superpowered warriors to beat down other enemies and threats to save the world! Go through the manga/anime story and experience the series in a new way! You might even get to see some special stories not seen in either one of those mediums! Are you ready to become the ultimate hero?! Find out in One Punch Man: Road to Hero!

One Punch Man: Road to Hero follows the anime series’ storyline. Saitama was once an everyday businessman who longed for something more in his life. After saving a child from an evil crab-like villain, Saitama began grueling training taxing his body…and hair. Now, a barely-known hero, Saitama looks for challenges all across his town but has found one problem. Due to his powerful training every enemy our hero faces is defeated in one hit! Will Saitama ever find a truly tough villain out there?!

If you’ve played games like Fate/Grand Order, Epic Seven and/or Knights Chronicle then you should know what to expect from One Punch Man: Road to Hero. Players take charge of several characters and fight through various events from the anime/manga of One Punch Man. The characters you control are obtained through summons—like most gacha games—and you either obtain them in pieces or gain them all in one shot. You can have both heroes and villains on your team to create some truly weird parties, but we loved that One Punch Man: Road to Hero didn’t force you to control only heroes. Don’t expect Saitama on your team though. Being the ultimate hero, Saitama is a summon card that can be obtained while playing.

When he is activated, you basically win fights so it makes sense he isn’t a character you can always have on the field.
Speaking of parties, if it wasn’t already obvious, One Punch Man: Road to Hero is an RPG at its core. You assemble teams of 4-5 warriors and go along a grid-like map to accomplish objectives. When you encounter an enemy, you go into an auto turn based system where players just choose special attacks as a bar fills up from taking damage or dealing it out. This system is great for those who are busy and want the computer to take the reins, but for most players, this is a very fun based system and not in depth like Fate/Grand Order. One Punch Man: Road to Hero is accessible to all, but that simplicity means it’s not a very detailed based RPG.

Continuing from the gameplay, One Punch Man: Road to Hero suffers greatly from its repetitive style. Players go through the same maps, fight the same enemies and struggle to obtain items the same way for each summon. Needless to say, One Punch Man: Road to Hero can get boring quickly if you are one of those gamers who likes to spend hours playing one title. We highly—HIGHLY—recommend playing One Punch Man: Road to Hero in small sessions for maximum enjoyment.

In terms of modes in One Punch Man: Road to Hero, we’ve got good news and bad news for you. Outside of the main storyline, players can enjoy special events and even battle arenas to test their parties’ strength which is nice to break the monotony. Bad news though, the main game is still the same all around. You’re still fighting on the same maps, listening to the same tracks and still fighting the same characters. Get use to seeing the Crablante…you’ll see him a thousand times in the first few hours of play.

If there is one other strength in One Punch Man: Road to Hero, it would come in the form of the anime cutscenes and careful detail to the source material. The anime scenes during some of the gameplay is great to witness and it’s really cool to go through the series again but from an outside perspective. Characters—despite being chibi—are well detailed too and pay homage to the original medium. We’ve seen stronger looking anime-inspired gacha games, but One Punch Man: Road to Hero does what it needs to do at the end of the day.

Our last major issue with One Punch Man: Road to Hero is the actual gacha element which we didn’t talk about in great detail for a reason. All gacha games are very focused on luck and usually need players to spend real world money or a lot of in-game time to get summon items. One Punch Man: Road to Hero does the same but luck here—and what you get—is very weak in comparison to other games. You have to obtain usually 30-40 pieces of a character to unlock them via the smaller summons or you can use the special summons to have a higher chance at getting stronger characters in one shot. Regardless though, the luck from these draws is like the real lottery. We legit spent a significant number of items to gain barely a few characters and pieces. Expect to spend a lot of in game time and/or a lot of money if you want to nab some of the better draws One Punch Man: Road to Hero has.

One Punch Man: Road to Hero is a gacha-themed RPG that has strengths here and there but also a multitude of minor problems. While the gameplay is engaging and we love the addition of cutscenes from the anime series, One Punch Man: Road to Hero tends to be very simple and repetitive which most gacha games suffer from. We also do not like the system for summoning heroes as we’ve played for hours now and rarely ever get a good rated hero/villain with our summons. There seems to be an absurd amount of luck needed to obtain characters and that means if you plan on sinking money into One Punch Man: Road to Hero, be prepared to spend quite a bit. Luckily, with a lot of playtime, you are given summoning items in a nice amount to avoid that bitter feeling, but even then, don’t expect to get any of the big named characters too quickly. One Punch Man: Road to Hero is a fun little RPG, but don’t expect it to hold your attention forever. Play in small bursts and you’ll like One Punch Man: Road to Hero a lot more.

We respect Oasis Games for creating some truly masterful games and we’d love to add One Punch Man: Road to Hero to that list but can’t. One Punch Man: Road to Hero has some great elements to it by being an engaging gacha RPG but suffers from some absurd luck-based summons and stale RPG combat. We’re sure a few updates could fix the luck problem, but the combat is where the main gameplay comes into focus for One Punch Man: Road to Hero and it really is too repetitive for its own good. Still, as fans of One Punch Man, One Punch Man: Road to Hero is a good mobile game for the Android/iOS that is free and shows some much-needed love to the series. For those reasons, we think everyone should at least give One Punch Man: Road to Hero a try as they might find our issues with it minor and want to play it as fans of the show! Are you going to download One Punch Man: Road to Hero? Comment below to let us know your thoughts or if you have already! For even more game reviews and anime themed articles, be sure to keep stuck to our glorious hive here at Honey’s Anime!