There is a particular kind of charm to playing a game where the developer’s enthusiasm is felt in almost every corner, even when the finished product is clearly fighting against its own limitations. Kijutsu Rider is one of those games. It wears its love of anime, sentai heroes and spectacular character action proudly, throwing five colourful heroes into a battle against the sinister Black Cross Conglomerate and filling its arenas with monsters waiting to be carved apart. It is rough, occasionally frustrating and nowhere near as polished as the games it takes inspiration from, but there is an undeniable spark here that makes it difficult to dismiss outright.
Developed and published by solo indie developer OmegaMechAnimations, Kijutsu Rider is an ambitious attempt to capture the fast, stylish combat associated with character action games. The basic ingredients are certainly familiar, with multiple playable heroes, flashy attacks, aerial combos, dodges, parries, counters and bosses designed to test your ability to string everything together. There are 15 stages to battle through and more than 25 enemy types standing between you and the Black Cross Conglomerate. Unfortunately, while the ambition is easy to appreciate, the execution often struggles to keep pace with it.
A Heroic Anime Adventure
The first impression Kijutsu Rider makes is fairly positive. Its visual identity has personality, with colourful characters, exaggerated designs and special effects that clearly draw on anime and Japanese superhero traditions. It does not have the budget to match the spectacle of the biggest character action games, but it understands why those games are appealing in the first place.
There is something enjoyable about selecting a hero and charging into an arena, knowing the next few minutes will involve a considerable amount of button-pressing. The five playable characters provide welcome variety, with different weapon types, special attacks and combo trees that encourage you to experiment with the roster. While the differences do not always feel as substantial as they perhaps should, having multiple heroes gives the campaign a little more flavour than if you were simply controlling one character from beginning to end.
The story itself is fairly straightforward. The Black Cross Conglomerate has become a threat to the world, and your team of heroes must stop its plans. It is very much a vehicle for action rather than a deeply developed narrative, but there is nothing inherently wrong with that approach. Sometimes you just want an excuse to put a colourful superhero in the middle of a crowd of monsters and start swinging.
Combat Wants to Be Spectacular
At its heart, Kijutsu Rider is all about combat. The game clearly wants you to feel powerful, and the combination of standard attacks, special moves, dodges, parries and counters gives you plenty of tools to dismantle your opponents.
Aerial combat is particularly important. Launching an enemy into the air and following them upwards, extending the combo with special attacks and dash movement, is the kind of thing that can look fantastic when everything falls into place. There is a satisfying rhythm to it, and experienced players who enjoy learning enemy patterns and experimenting with combos will find enjoyment in mastering the available moves.
Unfortunately, the combat does not always feel as responsive as it needs to be. This is perhaps the game’s biggest problem, because character action games live or die by how attacks feel when they connect. When there is little reaction from an enemy and minimal feedback from your own attacks, it becomes surprisingly difficult to judge whether you have actually landed a satisfying blow or simply swung through empty space.
When Hits Don’t Feel Like Hits
Impact is everything in this genre. The best character action games make every strike feel meaningful, even when you are hitting a relatively insignificant enemy. There is usually a clear combination of animation, sound and hit reaction that tells your brain, almost instinctively, that your attack connected.
Kijutsu Rider often struggles in this department. Enemies can seem strangely unresponsive to attacks, and the lack of convincing hit reactions makes some encounters feel like you are attacking cardboard cut-outs rather than living opponents. There is also little of the satisfying hit stop that gives powerful attacks their sense of weight.
That does not mean the combat is completely broken. Once you start experimenting with the moves available to your chosen hero, there are moments when the intended system begins to emerge. Parrying an incoming attack, following it with a counter and then launching into an aerial combo can be genuinely enjoyable. The problem is that the game does not always communicate these moments clearly enough, so the player has to work harder than necessary to understand what is happening.
Five Heroes, Five Approaches
The five-character roster is one of the more appealing ideas. Having distinct heroes with their own weapons and special moves gives players a reason to replay stages and experiment with different combat styles.
There is potential here for genuine character depth. A player who prefers aggressive, close-range combat can choose a hero suited to that approach, while someone who enjoys more controlled attacks can experiment with a different moveset. The idea is sound and gives Kijutsu Rider a little more longevity than its straightforward campaign might otherwise offer.
What is missing is the level of polish that would make those differences truly shine. The characters have personality and unique attacks, but the overall combat system remains similar enough that switching between them does not completely transform the experience. It is enjoyable to have the choice, but it does not quite reach the point where every character feels like their own fully realised action game.
The Camera Is Your Secret Enemy
If there is one opponent that may cause more frustration than the Black Cross Conglomerate, it is the camera. Arena-based combat demands a reliable camera because players need to know where enemies are, where their character is positioned, and what attacks are coming next.
Unfortunately, Kijutsu Rider can make this much harder than it should be. Fixed angles can become awkward when battles move into tighter areas, and the camera can swing unpredictably during combat. Environmental geometry can also interfere with the view, creating moments when the action becomes difficult to follow.
Target locking does not always solve the problem either. When the lock-on system behaves properly, it can make focusing on a particular opponent much easier, particularly during boss encounters. When it decides to fight against you, however, it can become another source of frustration rather than the helpful combat tool it should be.
Fifteen Stages of Chaos
The campaign offers 15 stages, giving Kijutsu Rider a respectable amount of content for an indie character action game. The stages are structured around combat encounters, with enemy types gradually introduced and larger boss battles providing more substantial challenges.
The variety of enemies helps keep things moving, particularly as you encounter opponents that demand different approaches. Unfortunately, some enemy behaviour can feel rather basic, and the lack of strong reactions makes certain encounters feel more mechanical than they should.
Bosses are another mixed bag. On the one hand, the larger encounters are exactly what you want from this kind of game. They give your combat abilities a proper test and provide an opportunity to make use of dodges, parries and counters. On the other hand, some early encounters can feel surprisingly punishing, with aggressive attack strings and limited breathing room making the difficulty feel less like a test of skill and more like a test of patience.
A World Full of Rough Edges
The technical shortcomings are difficult to ignore. Kijutsu Rider is clearly the work of a solo developer without the resources of larger studios, and that context is important when considering the game’s rough presentation.
There are awkward animations, inconsistent visual interactions, and cutscene framing that occasionally looks unfinished. The limited graphics options also reinforce the feeling that this is a game built on a relatively modest technical foundation. None of these issues would necessarily be fatal on their own, but they begin to accumulate when combined with the camera and combat problems.
The soundtrack also has mixed results. Energetic synth rock is a fitting choice for a game about anime heroes fighting hordes of monsters, and when the music hits the right note, it gives the battles an extra burst of energy. Unfortunately, the audio mix can become uneven during hectic encounters, and the music can feel repetitive after extended sessions.
The Passion Is Still There
For all its shortcomings, I found myself rooting for Kijutsu Rider. There is something admirable about its sheer ambition. This is not a developer playing it safe with a tiny puzzle game or minimalist arcade experience. It is an attempt to create a full character action adventure with five heroes, 15 stages, numerous enemy types, bosses, special moves and a combat system that clearly draws inspiration from some of the genre’s biggest names.
That ambition deserves recognition. The game’s willingness to keep evolving is also encouraging. A solo developer taking on feedback and working to improve a project after release demonstrates a commitment that is easy to respect. There is a foundation here that could become considerably stronger with continued refinement, particularly if the combat feedback, camera behaviour and enemy reactions receive attention.
Final Verdict
Kijutsu Rider is a difficult game to score because it contains two very different experiences. One is the game that exists right now, a rough, technically inconsistent character action title where camera problems, weak combat feedback and awkward enemy reactions frequently get in the way of the fun. The other is the game you can glimpse beneath those problems, a colourful, anime-inspired hack-and-slash adventure with five heroes, satisfying ideas and a genuine love for the genre.
When everything works, there are glimpses of the experience Kijutsu Rider wants to become. Launching an enemy, chasing them into the air and chaining together attacks can be exciting. Successfully timing a parry before following it with a counter-attack gives you that small rush of mastery that character action games are built around. Those moments are real, but they are too often interrupted by the game’s technical roughness.
It would be easy to write Kijutsu Rider off simply because it does not reach the standards of the games that inspired it. I think that would miss something important. There is genuine personality here, and the enthusiasm behind the project comes through even when the mechanics stumble. What the game desperately needs is refinement rather than reinvention.
For fans of polished spectacle fighters, there are simply too many rough edges to overlook. For players willing to tolerate some technical frustration in exchange for discovering an ambitious indie project with plenty of heart, there is something worth exploring. Kijutsu Rider may not yet be the superhero adventure it dreams of being, but beneath the glitches and awkward moments is a game that clearly wants to make you smile.
