While it may not be a genre known for its wild variety, I’ve still always enjoyed a good beat-em-up, going back to the days of Final Fight and many others from the glory days in the arcades. The early days of this generation had pretty slim pickings, but it has been nice to see quite a fair number of solid contenders show up over the course of the Switch’s lifespan. While not all of them have had an edge to really stand out, the handful that have gone the extra mile have been quite exceptional. 

I suppose that makes this a good time to point out that Maki: Paw of Fury absolutely wouldn’t belong in the same breath as those top-tier titles, and honestly I wouldn’t even be comfortable putting it in the middle tier. The challenge for the genre has always been how to have enough variety and excitement to justify continuing to play on, even though after a while there are only so many ways to beat up what will often become repetitive mobs of enemies. Even the best titles can have weaknesses against this issue if the intensity lets up for a few too many moments, but in general you can still see clear efforts to combat them.

I can’t say the same for Maki though, as once you get rolling with your character of choice you’re pretty well committed to a pretty long, grindy, and repetitive road. Whether you come at it from the angle of too little enemy variety, a relatively limited moveset, controls that are only adequate at best, or it often being hard to tell how you’re lining up with enemies in terms of depth there are plenty of areas to be nitpicked. Visually I suppose the characters at least look quite nice, though I’d argue their sizes are more of a liability than a strength in the end. The issue is just that the play pretty quickly falls flat and feels like it has nowhere to go. Even if this were released early in the system’s lifespan with less formidable contenders it would have been a bit of a dud, but given the heights that some of the competition have reached this falls very far from the high marks that have been set.