FOR FANS ONLY

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle

The gripping feel of a shonen manga hits as soon as you start up the game, you’re holding your controller all set to bust this guy’s face in. But then you ask, who is JoJo? And what’s the bizarre adventure?

Before reviewing this game, I never actually knew of the manga franchise that is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and I’m sure there are some of you who haven’t heard about it either. And unfortunately, this will affect how the game plays. It also doesn’t seem to be developers CyberConnect2’s job to shed any light on the story either. So after scouring the web for answers, the gist of “JoJo” is this. JoJo isn’t one particular character, they’re all called JoJo. Like Jonathan Joestar or Giorno Giovanna, all of whom are descendants of the original Jonathan Joestar. The story spans across several generations of JoJos, fighting against one Dio Brando and his followers.

Fans of the franchise will appreciate the fact that the game offers up all eight arcs of the manga storyline and scenes into a playable beat-‘em-up, down to every last detail.

Gameplay-wise, it’s pretty templated. Controls range from mindless button mashing to ones that recommend the use of an actual arcade stick in order to pull off. Other staples like crazy multi-hit combos and ultimate moves are here, plus guard breaks and taunting moves that rob your opponent of some power. Mildly entertaining are the objects and elements that can affect fights, because no one really wants a chandelier to fall on your head.

What’s lacking in gameplay is made up in flair. Each of the game’s 32 characters has a signature style like draining your opponent’s health through vampirism, calling in a Stand (a separate entity) that fights alongside you, or even speeding up the fight timer. However, some characters are a challenge to use because they’re just totally useless in fights, which is a known balance issue.

Single-player revolves around the Story Mode and trying to make sense of all eight arcs with missionbased fights, which then unlocks the next part of the story. If you do make it out alive, you’ll find that you’ll be able to play the same match again, but as your opponent instead.

I can tell you of all this but still remain clueless of what JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is actually about. You certainly need to be a fan of JoJo to explicitly enjoy everything the game has to offer, or like us, you’ll be wondering how this game scored a perfect 40/40 from Famitsu.