The game is billed less as a grind-and-level game and more of a celebration of art and music and, yeah, intricate martial arts combat.

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Can it be both those things while mimicking a revenue model that works for an ARTS style combat game like League of Legends and Dota 2?

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The training system, often called combat or battling rope, was first developed for combat sports such as mixed martial arts, as a means to work out at a higher level of intensity.

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Either way, the device could give boxing a second wind at a time when fight fans increasingly are turning to mixed martial arts, or MMA, a form of combat that more often ends with decisive knockouts.

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Coming after a long, slow narrative slog, it's the first of a few stunningly staged combat interludes that borrow freely, and successfully, from Asia's martial-arts extravaganzas.

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