Written by Tom Moore
Bringing an incredible amount of excellent manga characters and stories since their start in 1968, Weekly Shonen Jump is currently celebrating its 50th Anniversary in the form of the new game Jump Force. Bringing together some of their most popular manga series, like: Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Black Clover, Hunter x Hunter, and many more, Jump Force gives players to control some of their favorite manga characters in explosive and crazy combat like never before.
Not to mention, these characters were set to face a new enemy that has brought both the manga worlds as well as Earth together. Unfortunately, Jump Force never aspires to be anything worthy of a great representation of 50 years of Shonen Jump and is a confusing experience overall.
From what was shown prior to the game’s release, Jump Force was set to be a fighting game filled with amazing crossovers and insane battles. In regards to fighting, the game lives up to this achievement, for the most part, as the roster is pretty expansive with a cast of 40 characters that represent 16 different mangas.
Obviously, series like Dragon Ball and One Piece were going to see more representation based on their mainstream popularity, but to see other characters like Yugi Moto (Yu-Gi-Oh), Asta (Black Clover), and more classic reps in the form of Kenshiro (Fist of the North Star) shows how far Shonen Jump has come.
The fighting is one of the best highlights of the game and seems too simple and basic at first, but eventually shows its sophistication. There’s definitely a bit of a learning curve with understanding how each character works and the fact that there is a shared health bar, rather than each character in the three-person team having their own, had me worried that having different characters didn’t matter. However, the more I played I quickly realized that choosing the right set of characters was important in controlling the pace of battle.
For instance, my team consists of Goku (Dragon Ball), Ryo Saeba (City Hunter), and Luffy (One Piece) and their unique playstyles and abilities mix together to create an interesting pace changing formula. With Goku, players can get up-close and personal with his powerful hand to hand combat and even keep enemies at a distance with his iconic Kamehameha. Then, with Ryo players can keep opposing players at a distance and slow down the battle with his quick shots that come from his trusty revolver and his double rocket launchers that follow opponents from far away. Lastly, Luffy can allows players to get back in opponents faces with rush attacks and fast punches.
There’s plenty of other options for players to have their own play styles and a bevy of options for how to survive in battle. Players can escape incoming attacks, rush into opposing players for a surprise attack, and perform quick counters if they can time their shields correctly. They can also utilize an awakening ability that unleashes a flashy and epic finishing move that can decimate opponents. Now, there can be some technical things that can go awry with so much going on.
Sometimes grabs wouldn’t grab even if I was one-foot away, sometimes it hard to block or figure out where you are because so much craziness is going on, and there’s definitely some balancing that needs to occur to make some of the specials feel more impactful or less impactful to the fights. However, the fighting mechanics are mostly sound, and it was actually interesting how the fights never felt completely one-sided.
There’s also some great detail put into the aesthetics of both the fighters and battlegrounds themselves. While some of the stages are solely based on famous locations through different mangas, there’re also some stages based on real world locations with some manga in-fusions. While on stages based on major landmarks like Paris, Time Square in New York City, The Mayan City in Mexico, and many others, they come with a small twist that infuses the manga world and the real world.
The Matterhorn in the Alps now has Frieza’s (Dragon Ball) ship stuck into the ground, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco might have a Kaiba Corp blimp floating around while ominous statue that surround the structure, and it seems that Blackbeard (One Piece) wanted to take his crew to see Hong Kong because his ship is now in the middle of the streets. The characters not only look great with their character models, but their appearances can change based off battle damage and it’s a nice touch to show how strong these attacks are.
Even the story is conceptually great and feels like an idea that’s worth a 50th Anniversary. Think about it, some of Shonen Jump’s most popular characters coming together to stop an unknown force after all of their worlds are meshed together. It’s pretty much an Avengers or Justice League style story with some of the most iconic anime characters of all-time. Honestly, the concept is so solid that it could be probably be a great manga or even a film series.
Unfortunately, the game completely falls apart when it becomes structured less like a fighting game and focuses more on MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) elements. In between fights, players are stuck in a cheap looking HUB world that completely tanks the pacing and impact of the story. Players will control their own playable avatar, who can be given a customizable look and even a customizable move-set. Admittedly, I kind of like the idea of the customizable avatar as it almost looks like a funny cosplay and I saw some interesting looks that resembled other anime characters.
The customizable moveset is also interesting, so if you want to have your avatar have Sanji’s (One Piece) Diable Jambe! Mutton Shot, Yusuke’s (Yu Yu Hakusho) Spirit Gun, and have your awakening ability be Piccolo’s (Dragon Ball) Light Grenade; you can. While I like the concept of a custom avatar, I will say that I don’t think you should be able to use custom avatars for online modes, like Ranked Matches, because it feels like a way to stack the deck in your favor with too much unpredictability.
The story, however, completely falls apart and loses all of its luster with the inclusion of the avatar character. The story pretty much surrounds the avatar and because the character doesn’t speak during cutscenes, so it leads to plenty of awkward moments. There are plenty of moments where characters will speak to the avatar, only for it to say absolutely nothing back, and respond like they said something important. It feels like a complete step backwards and leads to the story never feeling like anything special.
Jump Force’s MMO aspects really ruins the way that this story is told as going through missions where you either fight inconsequential enemies or just fill up another roster spot. A story about the greatest anime characters of all-time should be cinematic, inspiring, crazy, and incredibly animated. Jump Force doesn’t understand this at all and has a disjointed story that’s dull and boring with character introductions that are both unsurprising and generic. Most of the story is also told to through more speech bubble dialogue than real cinematics. While I can kind of understand this decision as the game is all in Japanese voiceover with English subtitles, which can give a more authentic vibe, and using more speech bubble dialogue can resemble a manga from time to time, it just doesn’t work.
Mangas may have words that can showcase a character’s personality, but the art-style and drawings have always been a way for people to identify a character’s reactions, emotions, and personalities. Jump Force doesn’t acknowledge this at all and characters don’t really seem to carry any personality whatsoever. I mean can you even imagine seeing the likes of Luffy, Goku, or even Naruto (Naruto) with little personality or energy behind them? Most of the time they are just standing there like statues and just talking with only minor movements that never exactly look right.
Honestly, one of the worst things that Jump Force brings is all of the technical bugs and lack of energy or care that would be put into an MMO. There’re so many instances where characters who would supply missions would not spawn for some time, running animations look robot and the animation is very choppy, and there would be many moments of clipping within both gameplay and cutscenes. Not to mention, there are tons of loading screens that feel way too long and only made me not want to explore the game. These maybe could’ve been better with some Shonen Jump history or fun facts, but instead they just give the same tips that anyone can figure out after the first hour of playing.
The HUB world also feels incredibly vacant, even with other players running around, and there’s a lack of direction or guiding when in it so I never really wanted to be in it. There’re no objective markers so you’re forced to run around the map to find what you’re looking for and even when you do, it just leaves you disappointed. Worst of all, the game has a leveling system that feels unimportant as it doesn’t tell you level recommendations for story missions. So, when you’re getting more damage dealt to you, you have no gauge as to how to progress and you end up not really wanting to progress at all.
Simply put, Jump Force feels like a game that wasn’t given the TLC it deserves. Instead of the game highlighting some of Shonen Jump’s best characters and moments, it doesn’t really try to do much at all. Shonen Jump and some of the series represented in Jump Force inspires manga fans all around the world and they deserve a game that resembles their long commitments and genuine love. It’s just unfortunate that they won’t find it here.
Review Score: 4 out of 10
