So, Tenkai Knights: Brave Battle, a game on the 3DS that was forgotten about, even by enthusiasts of bad video games, like myself, probably for reasons that it deserves. And yes, I am stretching this out as much as I can because I have no idea what Tenkai Knights is. Unlike Deal or No Deal, which I had a vague understanding of, I never watched the show, Tenkai Knights. I can’t make jokes about that. But I what I can make jokes about is that Tenkai Knights: Brave Battle is a fighting game that was developed by Bandai Namco, the same studio that brought us Tekken and SoulCalibur, some of the best fighting game franchises out there. So how did they manage to screw this one up so bad… I found out in less than a few seconds.



So the game starts with a narration that I can barely hear because of the sound mixing. The voice is so quiet while the music is bombastic as all hell. Thank god for the subtitles, wouldn’t want to miss this grand tale. So basically an alien race of knights come to earth to protect it and defeat the villain from their world, also something with a dragon. Why do the knights look like blockier Bionicles though. Yeah, remember those things? So after that, we move to the first mission, and suddenly, the cutscene turns to still images with a giant blue Final Fantasy VII textbox that takes up 30% of the screen. It looks horrible. As for the touch screen on the 3DS, it’s just one giant arrow button that lets you move onto the next screen, while the A button can do that just fine. I can’t help but drag this on. This is just the cutscenes and everything looks so unappealing. And the pacing is awful too. One minute, the kids are at an antique shop, then in a basement with alien technology, now the planet is square for some reason and we meet the Tenkai Knights, all within two minutes.
So after all that, we can finally move to the first fight in the game. And that being said, this is one of the worst fighting games I’ve ever played. Yes, more so than Fighter Within. It takes a sort of Smash Bros. approach with it’s large arena, but the enemies never move from their one platform. When you jump, you gotta hold the direction button first before you jump, otherwise you will jump in place with no direction of where you are going. No matter which enemy you go to first, no matter where you approach, it seems they are always waiting for you and they will always knock your ass out of the sky and fall back to the platform below. It is less of a fight of skill and more of you fighting to keep yourself in the sky before you get knocked down again. That is until I realized I was trying way too hard. If you kill an enemy and then just wait, they will respawn, and if you strike them, they will die and you will reach your goal. The goal is usually to kill four enemies or eight enemies, but they die in one hit. So you can either play fair and get annoyed like hell or play smart and be bored out of your mind. And unlike Fighter Within, I got no friends to play this with, because of fucking course I don’t. Who would have Tenkai Knights on 3DS… On second thought, who in 2019 would have a 3DS?
I can’t say for sure if this truly is the worst fighting game I’ve ever played. It’s a fighting game, and fighting games are competitive first. But from a single player perspective, looking at all the janky battle and the bad controls, it’s not looking so hot right now. And now I have an all new disgust towards Tenkai Knights. I mean, it was anime so it was always meant to be trash, but still. Fuck you, Brave Battle