Game:

DNF Duel (2022)

Duration: 33:05

60 views

1

What's that? New fighting game?! Yeah I'll try that.

So this is DNF Duel, a fighting game spin-off of Dungeon and Fighter Online, a popular Korean MMO beat 'em up thing that I've never really heard of until now. Co-developed by Arc System Works and Eighting, this game has blown up over the last few weeks, as it went from nearly a whole year of no news to suddenly EXPLODING with news leading up to this beta. A beta that...admittedly hasn't gone super well so far. Not only was the beta not available to preload on PS4 or PS5, it only shows up on the PlayStation web browser search and not the console search itself on PSN. And trying to play for the first 40 minutes or so saw me facing nothing but disconnection attempt after disconnection attempt. Then randomly the server was undergoing maintenance and instead the game would match me up with random CPUs to fight...while also givine ME a random character. After about a half hour of this, maintenance was over, but at that point problems persisted and I was getting tired, so this was all I got out of the first day of the beta.

Now uh...because there's no tutorial or training mode, and I also know next to NOTHING about Dungeon and Fighter in general, I don't wanna do dedicated breakdowns of things because I'm still learning! But still, it's kind of magical to go into a fighting game almost completely blind. So let's figure it out together!

Match 1: Berserker vs. Grappler

Ok so uh...some attacks do white damage that can heal over time, and some do red damage that is like REAL damage! You have MP! And uh...a big flashy super you can only do at low health! That's about all I gleamed here. That and Berserker has good range against the Grappler!

Match 2: Ranger vs. Inquisitor

Hey look, Korean Dante! From what I gather, the Ranger in general is a huge Dante homage, and seeing as Eighting also put Dante into Marvel vs. Capcom 3 it seems like fate he'd play somewhat similarly here. Ranger seems good, with great range, but that flaming wheel Inquisitor makes seems like a PAIN to deal with!

Match 3: Striker vs. Dragon Knight

Hey look, Korean Jam! Striker seems pretty good, and I like the way her moves flow together. Dragon Knight is notable for being the only character with an air dash in the game. Also her dragon seems like a pain to deal with, constantly butting in!

Match 4: Striker vs. Ranger

Let's see if this goes any smoother for me! (Nope) Well, lessons learned here...you can't block in the air, Ranger's super goes WAY too far, and supers give you no invincibility. I'm curious about damage scaling cuz I was able to combo into Striker's in the last match and it didn't do that much damage, and here Ranger nearly did half my health with a raw one. I wonder if Guts is in this game too?

Match 5: Grappler vs. Ranger

I've already seen enough Ranger at this point I think. Grappler here seems...hard to use. Slow, low range...but he does seem to hit hard! His super is also a grab it seems and if you initiate it at close range there's like no escape!

Match 6: Berserker vs. Vanguard

Here's our only Vanguard footage for now. From what I see, he's slow but has good range and damage. I also accidentally try Conversion here, a mechanic where you sacrifice some life to cancel out of whatever you're doing and get some MP back to boot. Probably gonna be the BIG technical caveat of this game.

Match 7: Ranger vs. Inquisitor

...can I play as Inquisitor please? Just once! From what I can see her moves cost a TON of MP. She spends a good chunk of this match with NO MP at all, but of course having stupid good range and damage makes up for it I guess. Ranger's air MP special seems stupid good. Just constant Rain Storm!

Match 8: Berserker vs. Berserker

Mostly just keeping this to finally show off Berserker's super. Why cut just one when we've come this far?!

Match 9: Dragon Knight vs. Hitman

Last one! At least it's characters we haven't seen a lot of. I really would like to use Dragon Knight a bit more since her air mobility seems nice but it was not to be!

I liked what I played but the first impression is a bit frustrating. Compare this with the KOF beta going on right now that has a full training mode AND tutorial AND local battle compared to this...oh and it worked right out of the gate too. On the one hand this is a sign way more people are checking out the beta then they had expected and that's good! However, they should have had a way to actually learn the game in the event of server issues, especially since this is a NEW thing that up until yesterday NO ONE knew anything about.

I will be open to playing more, hoping the server issues get ironed out. For now, the game seems neat but there's still so many unknowns!

Other Statistics