Shonen Jump has reached fifty years of publication, which is a tremendous accomplishment. They are the staple of all things manga related and are widely known for their highly successful and popular series. In celebration of that, Jump Force is an amalgamation; the best of the best all cuddled together in a single fighter game. But at the end of its story, at the end of its 40 hours gameplay slog, it wasn't a celebration anymore. It was a grind. And a painful one at that.Before I get into the gameplay aspects, I want to mention the games roster: at time of writing, forty two characters from multiple manga series (Dragonball, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, My Hero Acadamia, etc) can be played and their abilities used by your protagonist in the story, which is an amazing feat. While many of them are missing their more modern abilities, they retain their classic and iconic attacks, which help you as the protagonist, feel just as powerful as them. With that aside, onto the game.
The story is quite simplistic; Universes and worlds are crashing and blending into one another.You as the protagonist, are hit by an attack by Frieza, hit in a crossfire. Trunks, seeing no alternative, pushes an Umbra Cube into your chest to heal you, and instead of becoming a Replica (cannonfodder former humans who follow the bad guys), you are bestowed with incredible strength, speed and the ability to fight using all sorts of powers from any universe.You go on to help out Naruto, Goku and Luffy at the Umbras Base, and vow to the Director to fight all the Replicas and beat whoever is behind this attack on the human world.
It's a typical bad guy VS good guy story with a few very predictable twists thrown in the middle. Characters will betray you, adhere to you, and heroes from each universe will slowly join you once they are free from the Umbra Cube's influence. The bad guys are your typical "Destroy universe, become the ruler" trope, and here is where the issues come into force. Classic bad guys are following your antagonist Kane because...chaos. Each of their reasons is very fleeting; from using him for further power to basically shrugging it off, there doesn't seem much reason why they're helping him. But bad guys gotta bad guy I guess. As for the endgame, it was highly unsatisfying, at least for my eyes. Forty hours of grind, gameplay and cramped hands for two cutscenes going from getting strong, being beaten (offscreen mind you), and a five second defeat cutscene? The ending seemed a little...rushed. But most people don't play fighting games for the story, they play for the fighting. How is it?
The gameplay, quite frankly, is incredibly good if not slightly flawed. Bandai Namco have neatly mixed many of their classic mechanics into a single game and it works fantastically. Players can unlock/buy any ability from any character in the game and use them during online and story mode fighting. Are you a big fan of Vegeta's Galeck Gun, but want to mix in some Detroit Smash in the mix? You're free to do so! Mixing and matching different abilities and elemental attacks is key to winning victory in fights. However, the biggest flaw of the combat mechanic would be the block button.
Blocking will eliminate all abilities and attacks, no matter how strong your attack is. Has the AI been kicking your butt, you've finally got your ultimate ready and prepared to Solar Kamehameha them to smitherines? Well he just used block and you took off a smidgen of health. Even when only one attack away from death, as long as you're blocking, your attack means nothing. The only way to break a block is by grappling them with a Throw, but they are incredibly easy to miss (With either high speed dodge or simply moving slightly with light dodging) and you're right back to either them pummeling you, or blocking. It makes me greatly miss the Block Break days of Naruto games.
Graphics are quite decent, considering how they blended multiple different art styles. Scenery is especially gorgeous, while the character models can be either fantastic looking...ooooor just a tiny bit off. Admittedly, Luffy does look like a frog with those large, bulging eyes. Sound effects and musical score are absolutely wonderful and do a great job helping you feel heroic. Voice acting is great as always, with original voice actors returning to do their roles. There's something so enthralling about hearing your favourite childhood characters talking about eating food that you can't help feeling just so happy. Multiplayer is easy to pick up, and while it does have some connection issues (I'll touch on those later), any person who has used an online fighting HUD will pick it up easy.
Lastly I want to mention the amount of customisation in the game, to which I can only say, wow; creating your protagonist is a little difficult, considering all the options are based on the characters present. So while making a face isn't too hard, you'll be using your favourite characters hairdo or using a hat to cover it (although please Japanese Devs, please gimme beard options! Theres like one option and it was pencil thin!), but there are plenty of scars, facepaints and additional accessories to change that. Clothing accessories are particularly massive, giving players to mix and match their outfit to suit them and many can be unlocked via the additional mission base.
Despite all of this, this game is massively plagued by bugs and glitches as well. Logging in, every fifth time I will crash at the Communicating screen and be kicked back to dashboard. Framerate issues are also extremely common, from cutscenes to gameplay. It really breaks the immersion when a cutscene or even a fight slows to a crawl when your opponent releases an attack and then zooms directly into your face. Screen tears are also common, freezes and audio glitches too. I also want to mention how basic each mission seems to be. While its understandable for a fighting game to focus on nothing but fighting, to unlock everything that is all you get to do: new costume, ability, characters, elemental attacks, everything needs to include a fight to either unlock it, or earn the gold currency to buy it (and thank god they didn't introduce microtransations...).
This turns a fun fighter into just a slog of battling increasingly harder enemies for that one move you've wanted since the beginning. It just feels like wasted potential. Another small issue that the community has had is the lack of its female characters. Out of forty two playable characters (Not counting your protagonist if you choose to play as a woman), only three of them are female. Four if you count the unplayable character Galena. In my eyes it was such as wasted opportunity by the devs but I hope to see some come into light with the Season Pass.
And I may only be able to speak for myself, but why is Hisoka the hardest character to fight in the game? I struggled on no other person, just him. Each fight, no matter my tactics, he would just kick my butt over and over to the point of extreme anger. But I digress.
Jump Force is a love letter to every anime fan out there, no matter the series they enjoy. Die hard fans of both anime and fighting games will find no issue with this game, but for me, it was just so much wasted potential. Fighting over and over and over for forty hours for a mediocre story and plotline was simply...not worth it. With a bit of extra polish, more modes put into the mix, it could have been something a little more worth the asking price. Jump Force is a fun adventure, but its a ride full of bumps and potholes.
Jump Force: 6/10
