I got my hands on ONE a couple days ago. N-gage v2.0‘s first Beat-em-up/Fighting game. I love fighters ! And boy was I impressed with this one.
Read on for the review.
When I first played ONE, it was on my N-gage Classic a few years ago. Being a huge fan of beat-em-ups like Tekken and Street Fighter, I was very interested in seeing N-gage’s first 3d Fighter. Then ONE came and while it was good, it wasnt great and it left me wanting more.
ONE on N-gage v2.0 is nothing like the original ONE on N-gage v1. This game has been built from the ground up again by the publishers, Digital Legends. Most of the moves and motion-captures might appear to be the same but the underlying gameplay mechanics are new, which thankfully, makes the second “ONE” a lot better than the old “ONE” on Original N-gage.
Graphics :
When you first start up ONE, the first thing that really gets you, is the graphics.While they definitely could have benefited from using the built in 3D Chip on most N-series Devices, the graphics on ONE are amazing.
Everythings smooth, clear and understandable even without graphics accelerated hardware. There’s no graphics “smudging” or disappearing body parts, and that’s very important in a fast fighting game like ONE, especially since it is built around ‘realistic’ fighting.
Gameplay :
Each Game character in ONE has his/her own strengths and weakness. Some might prefer a more hands on fight, some might wait for you to come to them. Each has their own strength, agility and speed in various combinations. Since the game is built on “realistic flighting”, you wont find any Tekken or Street Fighter esque moves here. All the game characters jump up to about shoulder height with the most agile fighter, punch and kick with a couple throw moves and side stepping. Each round lasts about 90 seconds.
Controls :
ONE is also not a button-mashing type of game like most new Beat-em-ups. You’re waiting for your opponent to have his guard down and leave a part of his body exposed which you attempt to hit, all this while they attempt to strike you or move around so you must defend yourself too.
There are a couple of moves you can make, which you can learn from the in-game tutorial. Theres key combinations which give you all the regular fighting moves or you can chain together button presses for special moves or combos.
The controls on ONE are good enough. You use the direction keys to move left or right, down to crouch and up to jump. Button A is to punch and button B is to kick. Because of this being a fighter game on a regular phone keypad, it suffers a little bit. The controls dont quite flow and you’re always conscious of where your thumbs are and what you want to press. That being said, you get used to it eventually and you’ll be beating people up ingame before you know it.
Orientation :
ONE can be played in both landscape and portrait mode on phones that support it. The game also supports TV-Out if your phone supports it, so you can play the game on the big screen if you wish.
Game Modes :
Beat-em-up fans are going to love ONE. You have a strong single player fighting experience with opponents that have pretty high levels of AI. You’ve also got numerous other single player modes that will keep you occupied.
Survival keeps throwing opponents one after another at you until your health bar reaches zero.
Training is like your online manual. Here you’re taught all the moves and
combinations that you’ll need.
Most importantly, is the story mode. This takes you around the world in a ‘winner takes all’ competition to find the ‘one’ best fighter, where you’ll face steadily more harder AI opponents to
fight, and along the way unlock clothes and items to customise your fighter.
There is also an ELO style rankings, where you’ll get more points for defeating a better fighter than you (that is, has more ELO than you), and less points if you’re fighting one not as good as you. These points are like your online score in ONE so you’ll want to get as much ELO as you can to show off online. I found the story mode to be a little short though.
Multiplayer :
Sadly, there’s no online fighting. You can only do this via Bluetooth , with local opponents. I think the ability to fight online would have been amazing. But right now all you can do is upload your ELO score and compare yourself to anyone else around the world.Of course this means there will always be someone at the top of the table as the best of the best or “The ONE” for people to aim to beat.
Going online is easy. You let Arena know your location, and your fighter data is uploaded to the ONE server. Going online will upload the score of your fighter, and allow this to be compared to others for the global ranking.
There’s also Xbox-style Arena achivements called “Point Pickups” that you unlock as you play the game. This adds to the replay value tremendously as each point pickup gives you a certain amount of N-gage Points to add to your total N-gage point score in your N-gage account. For purely bragging rights ofcause.
Conclusion :
ONE is definitely better than its predescessor on the original N-gage and by far is the best beat em up on a mobile platform. The graphics are fluid and amazing and will defnitely make people around you stare at your mobile’s screen to watch the action. The story mode will keep you at it untill you finish the game and the arena point pickups will give you replay value. While its no Tekken or Virtua Fighter, ONE does have its certain charm and you probably wont regret picking it up for your N-gage compatible handset.
I’d give it a 4 out of 5 overall.
You can find out more about the game over on its Official Game page or if you need tips or help with the game, head on over to the Official ONE N-gage forum. Also, dont forget about the ONE tournament going on right now.
-Teh Cj
Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile things.
Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus 
or on Facebook or Twitter: Follow @clintonjeff
Comments (18)
are u able to with ur n96??
Hope that helps !
THe game got activated over a WiFi connection! (I wonder why it needs a WiFi connection, and can't do with an EDGE connection)
Also the thing about unlinking your account, Check the video that N-Gage has for activation of game. its there on their website.
:)