Bandai Namco has been putting out their various Anime properties to the gaming world over the last several years. Diving into the world of Naruto, Dragonball, One Piece and others to give players a chance to play be a part of their favorite shows. They’ve taken it a step further in their latest release Jump Force. The game has characters from multiple different amines in an arena brawler type game with a story featuring your custom-made character. Does the game deliver or is it just banking on the hype of having so many franchises together? This is our Jump Force Review.
The game starts off amidst the broken ruins of a city as Goku fights against Freeza, a quick dodge of a beam from him leaves Goku safe but blasts you down and left for dead. In rushes Trunks to save you and there’s only one way. TO BECOME A HERO! This is where you get to dive in and make a custom character picking weather their origin world is from Dragonball, Naruto or One Piece. From there you learn the basic back story of the game and decided which team to join which gives you your starting skills. Don’t worry though, you can get other skills later and change your moves around to further customize your character. From there your off to do various missions or play against other people with your chosen team of 3.
The customizing given in Jump Force is great, not only are there various hairstyles from several anime but there are plenty of clothing options that you can unlock as well. This really does help you to define the uniqueness of your character or you can just make a Naruto clone, the choice is yours. You can then spend the in-game currency to pick up different moves until you have 3 power moves you like and one ultra-Awakened move. At one time I had Luffy’s Jet Hawk, a move from Yugi Moto summoning the Dark Magician, Goku’s Kamehameha with an Ultra move from Ken from Fist of the North Star. Variety can very much be had in your personal character.
The meat of the game comes in its fights which are strung along in missions with cutscenes in between trying to weave the main story of Jump Force. The story itself is fairly basic, which is not too surprising considering how many different franchises are all being squeezed into one game. It isn’t a bad story though, but the cutscenes take away from it. While in battle the various characters look great, but often in the cutscenes the animations seem stiff or out of place. The single player story is there but seems more like a vehicle to help chain the missions together and unlock more characters.
The fighting system in place is simple to understand but the more complex moves can be harder to master. Being able to switch between one of three characters to switch up the fight or call for aid can shake things up. All of the various moves are well done and look great. Some of them are over the top and to the moon, but they fit the character and franchise and none seem to be overpowered. As you take more damage your Awakened meter fills up which will allow you to Awaken your other self. Think of Goku going Super Saiyan or Naruto transforming into Sage Mode. This allows you with passive damage boosts, access to your Ultra move and in general, makes you look cooler. A nice little detail is that as your character takes damage, it’s reflected in their torn clothes, cuts on their body, etc. It’s a detail that didn’t need to be there, but it’s one that lends itself to the feel of an anime.
If you’re someone who’s looking at Jump Force for Online fighting, then that may be a problem. While the game does several things well, it’s Online Fighting system has issues. More often than not I would step into a match that was plagued with lag and missed connections. In a fighting game where the timing of moves matters, this can be devastating and frustrating. There is no excuse for such a bad system to be in place in this day and age.
A key was given for review purposes.
