Anarchy Reigns review: A rocket-fist and a hard place

The world has descended into anarchy as the remnants of governments bomb one another, scramble for power and generally make a mess of our once lovely planet. As a side effect of nuclear war and chemical proliferation, the populace begins to mutate, only able to stave off physical disfigurement with advanced technology. Or something like that. The story of Platinum Games' Anarchy Reigns isn't terribly important, and the premise is conveyed entirely via a long wall of text during the first loading screen.

It's all merely a backdrop for what's really important: punching things with rocket-fists.

View Gallery:Anarchy Reigns (1/9/13)

Anarchy Reigns straddles the line between character action games, like Platinum's own Bayonetta, and traditional beat-em-ups like Final Fight. The attack combinations aren't as varied as the former, but they're more complex than the latter. In fact, there are times when Anarchy Reigns feels like Dynasty Warriors, minus the flood of enemies on screen. Combat is broken up into weak and strong attacks, throws and "killer weapon" attacks. Each character has a different weapon ? double chainsaws, energy blades, etc. Each character also has a handful of unique combinations, but the list of moves is relatively short.

In the single-player mode, these moves hardly matter anyway, as the majority of enemies are little more than fodder, exploding into nasty mutant goo after two or three normal attacks. Some enemies take more punishment, notably the massive mutants. Unfortunately, they aren't really more difficult than regular enemies, they just take longer to kill. The same goes for most of the boss characters, who are generally pushovers on normal difficulty.

Despite some good vocal performances, the entire single-player campaign rarely feels like anything

PS3	PC
XBOX	Mobile
Wii U	MOVE
3DS	Kinect
VITA	Breaking