Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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I decided to play through Hagane: The Final Conflict after seeing a clip of it when browsing Twitter the other day. I don't think I had ever heard of this game prior, but it looked pretty fun from what I'd seen of it. I was not disappointed! The stages are fun and mostly don't overstay their welcome, the music's got that great Neo-Japanese flair, the bosses are pretty fun to fight, and Hagane's moveset is diverse and powerful! I loved messing around with the different moves Hagane could do!

If there's any real issue I have with the game, it's that the game rarely requires or encourages you to actually make use of the rotation moves. Sure, they're pretty flashy, but it's often faster and safer to just swipe at enemies with your sword or spam projectiles. Though to be fair, this might just be a result of me not playing the game over and over yet, and there might be more areas where it makes sense to use them.

Also, at a first glance, the story doesn't really go into much detail in-game. The US manual *does* go into the ongoing feud between the Fuma and Koma Clans, as well as show the backstory of Hagane himself, but it doesn't really explain anything about the various enemies or bosses (more specifically, who is that mysterious man who appears in 2-1, 4-1 and 5-1?). The Japanese manual does look like it goes into a bit more detail, but I haven't had a chance to delve into that yet. This isn't a huge deal for me, but it did leave me more curious than anything.

In any case, I had a great time playing this! It definitely seems like the kind of game I'd play again later on!
-Trojan

Hagane: The Final Conflict (C) 1994-2025 Red Entertainment