DNF Duel review – fighter of the year

metro.co.uk:

The makers of Dragon Ball FighterZ return with a spin-off from Dungeon Fighter Online that is as fun to play as it is gorgeous to look at.

It’s been a slim few years for fighting games, with hardly any major new releases and the pandemic making it impossible to run physical tournaments. Perhaps Street Fighter will once again step in to save the day, as it has so many times before, but other than MultiVersus that’s really the only upcoming fighting game that’s likely to have any impact on mainstream gaming. At least until the next Mortal Kombat comes out.

DNF Duel seems doomed to obscurity from the very start but the fact that it’s co-developed by Arc System Works will be all that genre fans need to pique their interest, since this is the same team behind such acclaimed fighters as Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Indeed, the unfeasibly attractive visuals are very similar to Guilty Gear -Strive- and the characters equally outrageous.

We admit we’re not really sure who designed them though as technically this is a spin-off from free-to-play action role-player Dungeon Fighter Online, which despite being one of the most successful video games of all time is something most Western gamers have probably never heard of. In its home country of South Korea though it’s known as Dungeon & Fighter, which is usually abbreviated to DNF – hence the name of this game.

Obscure or not, the origins of the game are not important as DNF Duel can be enjoyed purely at face value, as a very straightforward and accessible one-on-one fighter. More so than any of the previously mentioned Arc System Works games, DNF Duel has been designed so that non-fans can almost instantly understand its controls and compete on at least some level.

Tha