![]() This completely deprives the tried-and-true tradition of mastering one character’s moveset. I’m not exaggerating: “combos” consist of holding the right trigger and one of your four main buttons. Without the satisfaction of executing complicated combos to take out opponents, a la Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, Jump Force plays as an out-and-out button masher. However, I can understand many of the complaints that came out after its release in early 2019: earning a 56% Metacritic score, Jump Force has an incredibly simple fighting system that doesn’t offer much of a challenge. In addition to online play, the game features a single-player story mode in which the player’s avatar joins beloved characters from Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, One Piece, and others to (what else?) save the world.Ī simple enough premise, given that it’s a fighting game. Capcom take on fighting games, Jump Force is all about taking three-man teams cherry-picked from Jump’s vast roster and pitting them against each other, each character loaded with specialized attacks indicative of their manga/anime canon. ![]() Jump Force is a celebration of the golden anniversary of Japanese manga juggernaut Shonen Jump, developed by Spike Chunsoft and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Jump Force does not at all feel like a “force”, instead it wastes these characters' legacy for something that feels like an utter cash grab.What I found is that sometimes, a game can be enjoyed in unexpected ways. ![]() Considering the sheer number of iconic manga characters here, that feels like a big miss. There are no dynamics to the narrative nor the gameplay. Redundancy creeps up fast, with fights and tasks that all feel the same from one another. The story offers very little beyond clumsy dialog and cut scenes (and the character design looks most uncomfortable during these moments too).īut its biggest sin is in how dull the game feels to experience. The result are character models that look very little like their source material and more like stop-motion models of toys based on the actual characters. The 3D approach has always been an awkward fit with manga characters, and the way the game tries to make them all feel physically fitting with each other is a major flaw. The physical appearance of the characters is something that cannot be overlooked. Most of these are superfluous but sometimes they present niche goodies that hardcore manga fans may appreciate. Throughout there are opportunities to customize your character through the points you earn, both in appearance and skills. As the fighting style feels pretty much the same throughout, this all ends up feeling ultimately inconsequential. Players create a character basically based on the JUMP comics’ roster and decide which manga's fighting style you'd like to take from. In response, the earth decides that instead, it will counter by bringing to life the good JUMP characters. To tie all these fighting elements together, the game comes up with a forgettable story involving the merging of the JUMP universe with ours, unleashing the comics' villain characters onto Earth. The camera angles are hyper-kinetic, which isn't rare to the genre, but feels additionally confusing to follow here. It also doesn't help that in the split seconds that some of the cut scenes happen, you will lose sight of where your opponent is. (Courtesy of Bandai Namco/-)Īfter the same cut-scene happens a few times to your character during these special moves, it ends up being something that feels more like an unnecessary momentum breaker rather than a colorful element. Pulling these iconic attacks together is undoubtedly a cool draw for longtime fans of the comics, and managing Dragon Ball's “Kamehame” or Naruto's “Rasengan” is always exciting to experience.īut they too feel slapdash and certainly far less exciting than watching the anime or reading the manga.īring it on: The fighting style feels pretty much the same throughout the game. This feels like a waste when you have characters as disparate as the super-powered half-alien hero Son Goku from Dragon Ball and the tragic samurai Himura Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin.Īttempts at projecting character individuality are done through animation scenes, which occurs during fights when special attacks are executed. Level up: The game offers player opportunities to customize characters through the points earned. This maddeningly oversimplified approach extends to special attacks which are, again, triggered all through a similar-scheme of button mashing (instead of a combination of button and directional button moves like most fighting games).
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