The heroes of Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, and more come together in an epic celebration of Weekly Shonen Jump properties

Bandai Namco isn’t about to let Nintendo have all of the fun with fighting crossovers these days. Where Switch owners get to duke it out with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC owners can now dive into Jump Force. Whether you’ve read every manga or watched every anime that the colorful cast of characters hail from, or it’s your very first experience with them, Jump Force is a very fun way to throw down.

Battles play out in a unique perspective. Unlike most fighting games, the camera sits behind your character at just the slightest angle, not so different from a lot of adventure titles. This over the shoulder view on the action gives Jump Force a more dramatic presentation than your traditional fighter. The regular closeups that occur during special attacks only heighten the cinematic approach that combat employs.

The perspective will take some getting used to if you frequent the fighting genre, and even once you’ve grown accustomed to it, expect moments where it’s very difficult to gauge depth or distance between you and your foe. Should you play multiplayer locally, the camera will often be in the fight of its life to keep up with the combat’s breakneck pace.

The visuals have no issue holding up, however. Photorealism isn’t the name of the game for a crossover pulling from manga and anime, but Jump Force still sports an impressive amount of detail in its textures. Colors are bold, and everything animates cleanly no matter how raucous the action gets. Perhaps what’s most impressive is how the game successfully captures the unique character designs of the multiple franchises represented here. Each manga artist published in Weekly Shonen Jump drew their characters in their own distinct style, meaning that none looked the same, and most are wildly different from one another. Characters from One Piece look exactly like they come from One Piece; characters from Bleach look exactly like they come from Bleach, etc. Even as Jump Force incorporates a cohesive graphics engine built from the ground up by developer Spike Chunsoft, every character on the roster looks like they came right off the pages of their respective manga―an accomplishment in authenticity for this sprawling crossover.

A visually impressive fighter published by Bandai Namco was expected, but maybe what wasn’t so easy to anticipate is the surprising number of options that exist in Jump Force’s combat. The game gives your characters a lot of mobility on the spacious battlefields, and it demands that you constantly be on the move. Jump Force’s fighting mechanics concentrate heavily on rushes, which are a pretty linear means of approaching your opponent, and don’t vary too greatly between characters.

Where variety is more bountiful is through your characters’ special moves. These attacks offer all kinds of different offense, including grabs, projectiles, distance strikes, and in some cases, transformations that dramatically boost your characters’ attributes. Each fighter has a unique set of specials all to themselves, able to hit from angles and chain combos that most other combatants on the roster will not. The Dragon Ball characters fire off Ki blasts. Kenshin Himura has a host of his iconic Hiten Mitsurugi Style sword strokes. The Naruto ninjas perform Jutsu technique; one of Naruto’s sees him lay waste to an opponent using his Nine-Tails Charka art.

On top of this, Jump Force is a tag fighter, meaning that each bout sees you choosing a team of three fighters that you can alternate in the middle of the match. On occasion, you can call in one of your sidelined characters to rush in and perform an assist attack, even while you’re active character is performing a move, adding just another layer of choice to your attack strategy.

The action is fun once it heats up, but the game requires a bit of patience before you can indulge in it all to your heart’s content. Your first task in Jump Force is to create your own avatar, who becomes a playable character across all modes, and figures prominently in the game’s story. Being forced to do that, watch several lengthy cutscenes, slog through a bunch of tutorials, and get bombarded by exposition on the game’s premise isn’t the best way to start a fighting game.

Once you complete that mandatory intro, you’re free to enjoy Jump Force’s wealth of content. Game modes may not be numerous, but what’s there is stacked to the edges of the enormous HUB area. The story is fairly lengthy, complete with many fully voiced cutscenes. Its intricacy is rare in the genre, and serves as a suitable way to unlock characters. Beyond that, there’s loads of side missions to do at your leisure, which allow you to accumulate currency to buy clothes, accessories, and abilities your avatar character. If you’re a completionist, Jump Force will occupy a lot of your time given the sheer number of items available to purchase in-game.

Of course, for when you just want to battle it out with a CPU or another human, there’s both local and online multiplayer available. Jump Force is sure to be an ideal game to bust out at social gatherings where any of the attendees grew up reading or watching these many classic Japanese characters. The roster is enormous, spanning 42 characters who represent 16 different Weekly Shonen Jump properties. That’s not even where it maxes out, as nine more fighters are planned as DLC in the future.

FINAL SCORE

8.0/10

Jump Force is brimming with spectacle as it brings so many iconic characters together in one production, but it also provides them with solid mechanics and plentiful content to make it a complete package for gamers who know these Japanese heroes and villains (or maybe are about to). Pitting Kenshin Himura against Ichigo Kurosaki? Monkey D. Luffy against Yugi Muto? Yusuke Urameshi against Goku? This is an absolute riot for manga and anime fans.

+ A strong, authentic visual direction that’s stoked by a very cinematic presentation for battles

+ A surprising amount of options in combat

+ Many hours to be enjoyed between the meaty story mode and numerous mission battles

+ Puts together a massive roster from characters across all kinds of famous Weekly Shonen Jump manga (although the female characters are few in number)

― Camera angles can be awkward, at times being downright messy for local multiplayer

― Gets off to a pretty slow start

― Despite there being lots of content, it’s a little light on different game modes

Jump Force was played on Xbox One. It is also available on Playstation 4 and PC. The Geekiverse was provided a review copy by the game’s publisher, Bandai Namco Entertainment.

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