Path of Fury – Episode 1: Tetsuo’s Tower Review (Quest)
Summary: Path of Fury - Episode 1: Tetsuo’s Tower is an action fighting VR game influenced by martial arts films. The cadence in which the game flows is impressive and the actual process of punching and pulling off these feats feels good. Odd problems with implementation in the spatial environments causing incorrect placing of you and the enemies can be disappointing, but when it is executed properly, you can clearly walk the path of fury.
3.4
Test your endurance and punch your way through countless thugs to reach your nemesis at the top of Dragon Tower! Path of Fury – Episode 1: Tetsuo’s Tower is an action fighting game developed by the creator of Trek To Yomi, Leonard Menchiari, published by Abonico Game Works, and released on March 13th of 2025. Path of Fury is clearly inspired by 80’s style martial arts movies in the best way possible. The impeccable style translates to the gameplay in a really strong way. Get ready to methodically pummel your opponents with a fury of strikes!
The game starts with you at the top of a skyscraper with someone tied up in a chair next to a window. Apparently you are interrogating this guy for some crucial information. The helpless tied up man reluctantly lets you know where your target is. Tetsuo sits high up in his tower surrounded by the highest security imaginable. Now with your goal in range, you set off to take him down. The story isn’t all too compelling and sort of plays a small role in the background compared to how vigorous the gameplay is, but there is a classic story of revenge here that you can figure out pretty quickly from environmental storytelling and paying attention to the dialogue of the bosses.
The game is really easy to grasp. You don’t have to move your feet at all; the game moves you along the path by itself. All you have to worry about is what your hands are doing. Path of Fury is all about punching. Pressing the shoulder buttons on the Quest controllers will clench your fists, but you can also humorously (and very kung fu coded) keep your fingers extended and slap the snot out of your adversaries. The game lays out a nice pace. It is chaotic, but not too hectic. There are some moments in between battles where you can pause and take a breather. You will practically be wailing your arms everywhere though, so I would recommend playing this in a wide open area with no one else nearby unless they want to taste the wrath of your fist.
When you come up to an opponent, colored circles appear on different parts of their upper body. The colors correlate to the gloves your character is wearing. You have a blue glove on your left hand and a red glove on your right hand. So when a blue marker comes up on the side of your opponent’s face, it may be best to plant a side hook to his skull using your left fist. There are also white markers that indicate that you can use either of your hands to punch that area. You can also just thwack the enemies head as much as you want, but it never proves to be especially effective and won’t stagger them.
The force behind your strikes is also important. You are trying to knock these guys out so you need to be as aggressive as possible. The game will tell you if your swings are too weak or if you connected your shot properly and got the perfect angle. Taking your foes out as fast as possible is ideal since there are a lot of hoodlums you need to bulldoze through. You move through the levels at a brisk pace and enemies gang up on you to take their shots. You can block incoming attacks, but it can be tricky sometimes, especially when you are fighting more than one ruffian.
A lot of the time, guarding is pretty straightforward since you just need to pull your hands up to protect yourself, but other times, enemies will come at you from different angles. Low kicks and brandished weapons prove to be troublesome and require your utmost attention to defend from successfully. A majority of my deaths were due to improper guarding techniques so precision with how you protect yourself is just as important as your blitz of kung fu attacks.
You’ll be tearing it up in nightclubs, thrashing in alleyways, and pulverizing enemies into doors of apartments. There are some nice stages, but I was upset that I couldn’t explore any of them. The graphical style is so superb that I wanted to walk up and check out the vending machines and look at the details of the posters. Since the game constantly moves for you, you never get a chance to truly appreciate the artstyle of the game. The enemies are just as varied. You’ll go up against drug dealers, the police, and even the Yakuza. Sometimes enemies will have masks you may have to break, armor or shields to protect certain parts of their body, or guns that you will have to swat away before they fire at you. The game has some surprising gameplay elements like this that keeps you vigilant and observant, which are great components for a VR game.
You have a set number of hits you can take and your health resets after you make it to the next level. The game saves your progress after every couple of levels, but losing your life within those sets of stages will reset your entire progress and you’ll have to work your way through again from the last save which can be a demanding task since the game is so fatiguing. You are rated on how much time you took in the level, enemies defeated, and percentage of the level you made it through when you either complete a level or when you die, making it very easy to understand how to get better.
While that may sound pretty intense, it’s because it’s supposed to be. Path of Fury isn’t holding back any punches and the fun of the game is learning how to deal with each new enemy type. Back at your hideout, you can choose an enemy and use their stats to practice on a wooden dummy. Here, you can also choose to play the game’s Endless Modes which brings on an infinite amount of enemies that I found even more useful to practice on than the wooden dummy.
The game has an impressive old-school graphical style. The graphics feel inspired given the motif. The animations of the enemies getting hit and falling is super rewarding after a tiring bout. Beating the bad guys feels good and the great punchy sound effects exemplifies this even more. The fast paced techno beats keeps your heart racing and helps you keep moving.
While the game runs fine, I did have some problems. I had a lot of problems with the height settings. There is no settings option in the game and the game asks you to use the Adjust Height feature on the Quest, but even then, I had issues with the height of my character compared to my opponents. This causes a lot of issues in actually fighting and slightly moving around my enemies to get a better angle. Sometimes it feels like the game sets you too close to the goons which will make you accidentally smack them when you don’t mean to, which will then activate their attack, constantly making you waste time and possibly take unnecessary damage. Path Of Fury is also way too dark. The old-school graphics look good, but the bad lighting hinders the creative artstyle making some areas look blurry.
Final Thoughts?
Path of Fury is a very active game that will give you a serious workout given that the game is all about patience and perseverance. You can’t go into it randomly punching; you need to be accurate and agile. The game takes full advantage of large playing spaces since you need to turn around and fully extend your arms if you want to use the game’s mechanics properly. When the game works, it works really well, with you feeling like a martial arts master. When the game doesn’t work due to odd inconsistencies with character placement, it is discouraging and can feel like an idle endeavor. This arcade-like game is snappy and flows deftly and while this is just episode 1, there is plenty of content here to mess around with. If you are a fan of action flicks or old-school martial arts movies, then picking up Path of Fury – Episode 1: Tetsuo’s Tower is a no brainer.
About the Author
Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.
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