But like so many other games, adjusting the difficulty level does nothing to curb other problems, like awkward camera action and controls. At least as far as fighting goes this is true, but there are still places where you can instantly "die." There is a level you will have the pleasure of visiting a few times where apparently bottomless ponds of water are an ever present hazard. There aren't any big "one-hit killers," so you'll be able to explore and try new things pretty leisurely. You can get through most fights with a bit of strategy, and learning effective combos only makes battles go by faster.
In other words, this is your typical case of lazy movie licensing.Įven on the hardest difficulty, Kung Fu Panda is quite manageable until the very end. Either that or you have to love the movie a whole lot. In other words, to be motivated enough to finish this game, you have to absolutely love listening to sound bytes from Jack Black. Also, it seems like the rabbits and other townspeople are fond of Po, but there's no development of this. There's no explanation about why the boars are picking on the rabbits though. For example, in the early stages, Po is rescuing rabbits from boars. But if you take the game by itself, it does a poor job of explaining character motivations or background. Okay, this is understandable - the game is geared toward fans of the movie. You get the feeling you've supposed to have already seen the movie to enjoy the game. This game version of Kung Fu Panda does a pretty bad job of setting up the story and creating a stand alone world.
For example, in addition to the competitive multiplayer fighting games, there is a puzzle game and a matching game. You can use the multiplayer games as a slightly more relaxing way to spend your time with this game. It would have been nice to have a co-op story mode to make things easier in the main game. These multiplayer games aren't going to be much fun if you don't enjoy the rest of the game. There are some multiplayer games available in Kung Fu Panda but many have to be unlocked by finding special coins throughout the game. Goals for each level are explained pretty well, but carrying them out is a different story due to camera problems and other various issues.
They remind you about how to do some attacks repeatedly, but it usually seemed to correspond with the best strategy of attack for each area. There are scrolls scattered around that will give you tips on how to do special moves and perform various attacks. If Kung Fu Panda does anything well, it's reminding you of how to perform various attacks. As for your role in the action, you'll be sent off to fetch various items such as eggs and vases, and of course beat up tons of bad guys. Kung Fu Panda is a simple beat-em-up style game that is laced with scenes from the movie.
It doesn't help that all the cut scenes are done with the in-game graphics, so you're never really given that visual feast you're looking for when you come back from watching the movie. There are also some graphical glitches every now and then, such as some really badly pixelated water in one level. In fact, the normal behavior for NPCs is simply to remain glued into place. The animation is also not as fluid as you'd like to see. So while you'll see a bit of that feathery hair that will remind you of the painstaking CG animation from the movie, and you'll hear sound bytes from the movie's famous cast, you won't be fooled into thinking you're watching the movie here. Even so, Kung Fu Panda asks for a whopping 5.5 GB of hard drive space for installation, so be prepared. This is probably in order to ensure that a wide range of hardware can run it. It definitely doesn't look as good as say the Xbox 360 version.
Kung Fu Panda for PC doesn't win the award for graphics among the different versions of this game. Po's actual heroes are a group of kung fu masters known as the "Furious Five." The five are fittingly masters of several animal inspired syles, with a tiger being master of tiger style, a monkey with monkey style, etc.
The movie features a rather out-of-shape panda named Po who has fantasies of being a martial arts hero. Kung Fu Panda is a game based on the movie of the same name and releases right around the same time.