‘Path of Fury’ Preview – A VR Beat-’Em-Up That Packs a Nostalgic Punch

Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower is an upcoming combat sim that’s all about punching your way through gangsters while making a one-way trip through the ’80s-inspired underworld. We went hands-on with the first two levels ahead of its March 12th release on Quest, so read on to find out more.

I grew up on a steady diet of films like Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and a countless parade of ’80s and ’90s Chinese kung-fu flicks as a kid, which means I’m somewhat of sifu myself—at least that’s what Path of Fury wants me to feel, as it tosses a Shaolin Temple’s worth of Cantonese and Russian-speaking gangsters to punch through as you make your way to increasingly tough underworld bosses.

Even after a quick intro, I’m still not quite sure why I’m blasting through armies of dudes, dealing out successive body shots, uppercuts and blocking kicks, but what I can tell you it’s definitely a workout. I can also say that, despite the game’s on-rails design, the world-building is very much on point, serving up a mix of low-poly, PS1-era baddies in a vibrant, varied world.

Without giving too much away, you start out by interrogating a captured gangster for information, leading you to start your first mission at Tetsuo’s Tower, a typical crime lair that’s fronted by a night club full of heavies. As I mentioned, it’s on-rails, which means every step forward is essentially an automatic teleportation through the corridors leading to your next gang of dudes. That did little to distract from the mission at hand though: punch, punch, block, punch.

While fairly simple, the punch and parry system feels delightfully like a retro game, giving off arcade cabinet vibes that feels like its drawing from mid-90s titles like Time Crisis (1995). Instead of ducking behind cover and reloading though, I’m parrying incoming punches by tapping a highlighted target on a fist or foot, and going in for a flurry of blows with the other.

Beating an enemy is as simple as timing your punch to the highlighted body part, and doing it at the required power; red for hard and strong, grey for quick and soft.

This effectively means you don’t have much freedom on how to take down bad guys, although the flipside though is Path of Fury is all about the sort of Instructed Motion you see in games like Until You Fall (2020) or Beat Saber (2019), which prioritizes making you feel like an expert badass at specific moments. And it totally does the job.

Path of Fury is being developed by Leonard Menchiari, the indie dev behind a slew of non-VR games such as side-scrollers Trek to Yomi (2022) and The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] (2019). Looking at Menchiari’s previous titles, it’s no wonder why Path of Fury feels nailed the classic side-scrolling beat-’em-up feel. What’s more, despite being the developer’s first jab at the medium, it’s a really well-informed VR-native experience too.

For now, I have very few gripes with the two levels I played. I didn’t leave me overly winded, but I can bet a full 30 minutes of punching non-stop will easily fill out your default daily activity goals. For being such a low-poly affair, it’s exceedingly good at setting up scenes and offering up detailed environments that I wish I could linger in and explore.

It does feel a little sparse on options at the moment, giving you only a pause and restart button during gameplay. The two-level taster I played didn’t feature a seated mode, and when you’re blasted too many times, visually reeling over can feel overly uncomfortable, which I would hope can be changed before the final game comes out in March. There’s also currently no difficulty slider of any sort, which is a bummer if you’re just looking to waltz your way through for the sake of the story.

That said, more than anything, Path of Fury feels like one of those cool and stylish additions to your workout routine that offers enough fun and engaging gameplay to trick you into getting your heart rate up, even if you weren’t planning to in the first place.