[Review] FOR HONOR

[Hamdii]

For Honor is a fighting game. I had to keep repeating that to myself every time I got frustrated. The third-person camera, the medieval settings and the melee weapons had caught me off guard, thinking this was an action-adventure, or a hack-and-slash somewhat like Ryse. Approaching it with those expectations left me disappointed. When I accepted it as a fighting game, though, my attitude changed. Rooted in a clear system of checks and balances that require varied moves and annihilate spam attacking as viable gameplay, For Honor delivers some of the most creative melee combat I've seen. I'm no Robocop in this game, but there's something to be said for actually facing the person who chopped me down, rather than being slower on the draw or picked off from a blind spot. For Honor still has some qualities to help novices or the fighting-game averse. And the truth is that most everyone in For Honor, a week into its launch, hasn't played anything like it either.

As a fighting game, most of For Honor's merit is in its multiplayer. Yes, there is a single-player campaign, but it feels unfair to bash its threadbare story, empty characters and over-reliance on set pieces when that mode noticeably takes the back seat. I just enjoyed the campaign for what it is: a chance to experience all of the heroes against specific foe types in an environment more structured than the open practice For Honor also offers. For Honor’s roster isn’t sectioned off by classes, per se; nor does it really have the kind of specific, iconic characters of a fighting game's lineup. Three factions, the Vikings, Knights and Samurai each have four fighters: a standard warrior (Vanguard), a fast but vulnerable attacker (Assassin), a heavy (Heavy) and then a hybrid of two of the preceding classes. Significantly, two of these can be played as men or women, and two others are female- or male-only. I felt this gave meaningful gender distinction to certain roles while credibly including everyone. Gender avatars, where the choice is available, can be switched at any time in the multiplayer menu.

The different heroes across factions, though they may belong to the same "class" for lack of a better word, all play differently. The Knights' Conqueror (a heavy class) rightly has no real parry with his flail, but his block thwarts chained attacks. The Vikings' heavy, however, carries a sword (unlike that faction's Raider, with an axe) making him a much more viable counter-attacker. The best counter-attacker is the Samurai's orochi, assuming one knows how and where to dodge, but it takes real discipline to keep his guard up. The distinction given to each of the 12 heroes is the crux of For Honor. I would lose interest immediately if the fighters were effectively different skins of the same attributes. This means that for each hero, there’s a different, most-important part of For Honor's combat system, which can make the game intimidating in what it expects of a player. Some classes simply don't make good use of some moves, for purposes of balance. Experimenting with a new character should be done on a long-term basis, rather than assuming that what worked with a past hero carries over. For example, the Knights' Lawbringer, a blend of the Heavy and Vanguard groupings, was advertised as an effective counterattacker, but I learned that he parried a lot more slowly than the Warden. Against the Samurai's orochi, trying to parry was just a path to frustration. The "Art of Battle," as For Honor’s combat is called, absolutely requires an active defense. This is what makes it a fighting game more than the hack-n-slash it otherwise appears to be. Players strike from one of three positions — left, right or overhead — and block attacks from the same locations. For Honor's striking and movement isn't a true free-range-of-motion affair; there are long animations and super attacks and combinations galore. But again, the game's virtue rests on uncomplicated and reasonable fundamentals like the guard, building out to the more esoteric move sets and capabilities.

For Honor feels very much like a well-made (and gorgeously presented) sports video game to me, in that it’s a stout challenge but honest about its expectations. In all of my failures I knew why I lost, and had only the feeble excuse that maybe I needed more time to plan my attack. Players must ask themselves if they're willing to put in the work and practice to meet the talented competition in For Honor, which presents a deep and long-playing proposition in its multiplayer even if the single-player campaign is rote and not worth revisiting. It's easy to give up against such uncompromising and fast-paced combat, but those who stay with it are there to fight for something other than mere survival.

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