This is the third (or fourth if you count the greatly expanded PS2 port of the original) game in the Dynamite Deka series. Like so many SEGA arcade games from the 00s, it still doesn't have a home port, but it does run on the easily-emulated Naomi board. Though I do remember the early days of Naomi emulation, that this was one of the games I most wanted to play on that system, and it was so glitchy as to be unplayable. But that was a long time ago, and things have changed.
So, in keeping with the series' main gimmick, it's a 3D beat em up where almost every item is a weapon or a healing item. Some are even both, as you can pick up plates of food, pressing punch to throw some food or kick to take a bite. The plot and structure seem to be a strange mish=mash of elements from the previous games: like the first game, you're storming a building that's occupied by terrorists who've kidnapped an important person's daughter. Like the second game, you choose one of three routes of increasing difficulty at the start of the game, plus there are setpieces in this game that are clearly reskins of setpieces from the second game. For example, the small kitchen where you fought a big fat chef in that game is a small room where you fight a big fat panda in this one (well, a guy in a very realistic panda costume, at least).
It also keeps and expands upon the costume mechanic from the first game's PS2 remake. There are three plyable characters, and while playing the game, there are three diffrent coloured briefcases that cane appear as items dropped by enemies. The costumes aren't just cosmetic, but they're entire transformations with their own movesets, and most of them also have their own unique ways of interacting with the many weapons littered around the stages. Surprisingly, none of the costumes are references to classic SEGA games. Also, a useful piece of information is that all of Jennifer's costumes are both useless for fighting with and boring to control. But, you should give her a try at least once just because they're also the strangest, being a levitating yoga practitioner, a creepy jester, and (letting the weird trio down a little) a blatant clone of Marvel Comics' character Elektra.
Another returning element that's been expanded upon is the scene transition QTEs. They're annoying like all QTEs are, but unlike a lot of worse implementations of the concept, they serve to create a branching path system (like they did in the previous games), rather than being a "press the right button or die" situation. They're expanded on here by sometimes taking the form of little multiple choice questions that you only have seconds to answer, and some of them are even trick questions, like the old "What colour is the word RED in this sentence?", with the word RED actually being blue. I guess it's a way of preventing players from just memorising every QTE and forcing a reaction even from well-versed players. I don't like it, but I do approve of the ingenuity in concept, at least.
Asian Dynamite is a pretty good game. If you like the arlier games in the series, this is mostly just more of those. In some cases, it's just bits of those with a new coat of paint (and a hilariously garish gold suit on the main villain). But the new coat of paint, being a big shiny multipurpose Hong Kong skyscraper is nice, and it's a fun and weird game to play. I recommend giving it a try, while we all continue to wait and hope that SEGA starts porting Naomi and Atomiswave games to consoles someday.
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