Everybody knows, that there are two ultimate collaborations when it comes down to gaming, the ultimate collaboration from Square Enix and Disney that is Kingdom hearts and the other one from Nintendo which is none other
than The super smash brothers franchise. However, there is another big franchise which is based on collaboration, however it is less known because it was exclusive to the East, and that is Japan's Shonen collaboration.
This type of series, has a total of 8 games( to the Authors knowedge) from which only the last two debuted outside of Japan. Before proceeding into more details.
What is a shonen jump Game?
Shonen jump, is a manga company whose products are recognised throughout the world. Many great franchises were published through shonen and it's no secret that the company remained the No1 manga publisher in Japan and Worldwide.
Just to name a few, series like Dragon ball,One piece, Naruto, Bleach, JOJO's bizzare adventure ,Yugioh and others were published through Shonen Jump. Shonen jump back in 1988 experimented by releasing a video game that combined
a few of the heroes into one story. The game must ve done well as it received a sequel a few years later with different additional heroes. The franchise dissappeared for almost two decades but in 2005 it released (localy again) a Ds game
which swap the gamestyle from RPG to a fighting game very similar to smash brothers with a unique panel system. In the following 4 years the game received two more games, a sequel to the 2005 game with simply more heores and gameplay improvements
and a playstation 2 game with the three giants(Dragonball, One Piece, Naruto) only playable. Ten years later, the jump series released a new title which was also released in the west and that was J Stars Victory Vs. The game was a 3vs 3
arena battle where the player controls one hero and build supports to back them up. The game did extremely well and the new formula was well received. Alongside J stars there was another game with Chibby heroes that was released for Ios and Android
devices exclusively in Japan.
Five years later and in order to celebrate Shonen jumps 50 years Anniversary the game Jump Force was released. The game was highly anticipated as J Stars Victory Vs introduced the series to the western audience and the trailer of the
game looked extremely good, with great graphicks. Not to mention between J stars and Jump force there were plenty of new shonen series whose characters were going to be included. In February 2019 the developers Spike Chunsoft who 're the developers behind
various anime games (Dragon ball, One piece etc)and with the help of Bandai Namco who were the publishers,released the game to the world. Upon the release the game had three editions:
Standard
Include the game alone
Deluxe Edition
Included the Game alone and the seaosn pass for the next 9 DLC heroes.
Collector
Included the Game, a steelbook case, 3 Art Boards, and an exclusive Diorama (30cm) which depictioned Goku,Luffy and Naruto.
Story of the Game (spoilers for the first 5 minutes )
This type of games usually struggle to tell a good story, as there are so many heroes available and most are very different with each other. This time arround the studio did,the most popular function at the time.Custom character creation.So the entire story
has your character as the Main protagonist of the story. The game begins with a cutscene of a war breaking in the middle of the street. Out of nowhere, Frieza (an Iconic Dragon ball Villain) appears and blasts the world bringing chaos and destruction. Goku( main
Dragonball hero) appears and fights with Frieza. Frieza in order to escape, attacked a pedestrian to get Goku's attention of him. The pedestrian is about to die, but Future Trunks(another Dragon ball hero) tries to keep the pedestrian alive. His only option to keep
the person alive, was to inject him with a cube that will reborn the pedestrian as a hero. Once the player creates their custom hero, they re instantly regrouped by the heroes. Back in the base, the hero is quickly introduced to the concept of the game. Basically,
someone is trying to merge the real world with the world of Jump. The heroes joined an organization called the Jump Force whose goal is to return the worlds back to normal. Through the tale that proceeds, the heroes of jump force become aware that the bad guys from
each of the heroes worlds, joined forces with the person behind all this and they re trying to prevent Jump force from ruinning their leaders plans. Further more through the story of the game, the hero will have to help the jump heroes around by regrouping other people into
the organization, help them train and overall become a team.
Thoughts on the Story
The story of the game in comparison to all past entries was very good. In a clever way it combined all of the heroes into one team with one common goal. Don't get the wrong idea it has some flaws, but overall it was a decent story with various plot twists and interesting concepts.
The heores, unlike the fanbases do not attack each other for who is better but instead they all work together acknowledging that fighting among them will get them nowhere. In fact the heroes help each other train and build on their Weaknesses. For example, Deku (from hero Academia)
feels like a fish out of water, however Goku, Naruto, Luffy Jotaro and other Force members help him get the confidence that he is lacking. Kenshin(form Rorouni Kenshin) trains with Zoro as he realises that Zoro loses temper way to fast in battle leading him to make mistakes. The Seiya
is trainning with Jotaro for speed battles as Jotaro is amazed by the speed of the Seiya. There are also members who do not like to co operate making the whole force feel more realistic. For example Rukia (from Bleach) does not trust Yusuke(from Yuyu hakusho) as a demon is helping Yusuke
to stay alive, which is something a Soul Reaper such as Rukia phases as an enemy in her series. On the other hand people like Bakugo (who is low temper) always insults and tries to pick up a fight with everyone. The game also has innocent interactions such as the one where Yugi (from Yugioh)
is approached by Jotaro (from Jojo part 3) as he is reminded of a gambler enemy he phased and challenges Yugi for a game. Deku wondering who would win between the Ice bankai of Rukia and the flames of Sabo (from One piece) causing this innocent discussion to spark a rivary, and Kakashi (from Naruto)
being asked by Dai (from Dragon quest) to train him as Kakashi resembles his sensei. At the same time, Characters appear, that remain neutral to the whole thing and original to their character, Characters like Grimmjow (from Bleach) wants nothing to do with Jump force, but he also doesnt
want Ichigo to die and thus he remains freelancing defeating the enemy Noise and join the heroes every so often when there is a mission in his area. Kaiba(from Yugioh)starts the same by defeating various enemies in order to protect the world for his brother. Unlike Grimmjow he eventually
joins the force, but it is in the authors believe that he only joins if the DLC character is purchased. What is good about Kaiba is that once he joins the force sticking 100% to his character he disses everyone who isn't as rich or as good looking to him while deep down he cares about his brother,
and his arch nemesis Yugi.
Some Negative things about the story is that it is delivered in two forms. Cutscenes that are fully voice acted, and cutscenes that have no voice acting. Unfortunately for the game, every side quest and the majority of the main quests are the ones without the voice acting.
This can be really annoying due to the fact that the story cannot be enjoyed as much when the game keeps swapping from Voice acted to non. At the same time Light Yagami (From Death Note) although not playable, or gifted with super abilities have an important role in the game and honestly he brings
the hype and mystery elements to the story. Light is always paired with his Death God Ryuk, who for some reason has no voice actor causing even the voice acted cutscene to look akward. E.G (not story accurate) Light is talking about the end of the world and then Ryuk explains his part of the tale
however there is no audio and its only subtitles. Every time Ryuk appears to talk in an acted scene it simply stops the audio and the player should just focus on the subtitles. Action cutscenes do not look as impactfull as they should ve been and this is base on two main reasons. The first one beeing
the frame rate of those cutscenes seemed to drop (Played on the Ps5 so the Ps4 would be way worse) and the second reason beeing how they re extremely short. With the exception of the final chapted most cutscenes take less than a minute and in some cases just a few seconds. More over, some parts feel
as if they just drag to long to get to a certain point. For example, all the main villains, appear they fight and then they simply say oh i have to go. Why do they heroes keep letting them go, this is a question that the game never answers. Sure in some cases the answer is that their mission was to stall the
heroes but in others it makes zero sense. The heroes simply fight, and then call it a day as if these ain't the villains who wish nothing that despair and destruction. Additionaly another "fair" critisism is that the story in terms of gameplay feels repetitive in a bad way. As a new regroup, it makes sense that the hero
will try to get familirized with the force and that he will be sent in missions to regroup other heroes who do not know what is going on. However, each time the hero meets someone, they fight in order to gain their trust. A few chapters later, the enemy finds a way to control the heroes and once again the hero and a random
person (of the squad) Join forces, fight the brainwashed hero and then it's all fine. Few chapters later, the villains are capable of making replicas out of the heroes, resulting in another boss fight with the certain hero This process of
Join a random force member to fight a hero
Fight that hero
Free the hero from the brainwash and retrieve the cube
will be used alot while playing the main story.The final and Worst thing about the story is the fact that the storymode is everywhere and nowhere. To elaborate, the main story events
are marked with a red circle with an Exclanation mark (!). Some are placed in the hub world where the player will walk towards a direction and trigger a cutscene and the oother one and most common will be found in mission select. The problem here is that after a scene four mission become available and the player
can access them in any order. This is bad cause from a personal view: There were multiple times where a hero joined the force and on the next mission the team was trying to regroup them. It happened with majin Buu and with Bakugo.
Custom Avatar
The game begins with the cutscene mentioned above which allows the player to create their own custom Character. The game does not have the gigantic character creation of Code Vein but honestly it has a fair ammount of options. The player can start by choosing a gender and
then the height of the avatar. While creating the body the player will also pick the body color. Due to the fact that this is an avatar for a fictional world, the color skin of unrealistic clothes such as green red etc are available. Once the selection of body is finished the following option is for the hairstyke of
the avatar. Typical to anime once again, the roaster has a small ammount of realistic hair options and then the user is bombarded by plenty of anime haircuts taken directly inspiration from the anime beeing included in Jumo force. Hairstyles like Gohans, Ls, Bruno's, C16, Sasuke's Shikamarus and others. Once the main
style is selected, there are some options for coloring that become available. The two color paletes represent, the main hair color, and the shiny/dyed parts mainly found at the top of spikey hair or deep in the center. With the hair done, the next three options available re the eyebrows, the ears,nose and eyes. Similar to the hair
the game offeres a few realistic options and then styles taken from anime. Pointy ears taken from Kazuki Takahashi (Yugioh Author) well designed noses taken from Araki (Jojo Author) pointy eyes of Toriyama (Author of Dragonball) and others. The player is allowed to experiment on having two different eyes and eye colour.
Furthermore the next main option is the mouth and jaw that re grouped together as one. Moreover the user is given the option to customize the heroes Features. These are usually Tattoos found on the face, scars or simply make up paintings. The limit of features that can be added is two. Last but not least the player should select
the voice and the name of their hero.
The players hero, will begin with a default armor set but the player can freely customize it after the hero arrives to the hub world. Simply visiting a store will display several options for the hero to equip. This includes, a top, a bottom, gloves, shoes and specials(such as swords). The more the player proceeds the more options
become available and at the same time each of the 4 stores found in the hub world have different armor pieces from each other. The Game allows the players to combine set of heroes amongthemselves,Eg. The custom Character in the picture combins Grimmjow's top, Majin Buu bottom, Yugi's wrist bands and sword of Asta.
Once the appearance of the hero is completed, the player will have to set up the characters Abilities and skills. The player begins the game with a hand full of skills and abilities and is capable of buying new ones from the shops. If the player purchased any of the DLCs heroes, the skills, abilities and clothing items will also be available
for free. All the skillsavailable are from the heroes of the game. The hero can shoot Kamehameha, Fire ball jutsu, blade rush, stun granade and others. It's up to the player to find and build the hero in the game play of preference. Want to be a zoner? Then build the character with beans and blasts. Want to be unblockable? Add all the grap specials
There's plenty of styles to custom the hero. The J-skills are passive abilities. These abilities are various and different and re based on various in compat factors. EG. When health is above 50% the hero gets more ATK/DEF/Speed etc, if the health is below 50%, if the health is below 30%, if the hero is near the enemy, if the player won
set 1/2, constant abilities etc. Once again theres plenty of them.
General Gameplay and Controls
Jump force is a 3D arena brawler, where the player can select a team of three heroes(and villains) including the custom hero and face off againts another team of three (unless it's main story which has different group ups.) All the heroes become available once the hero joins a team in jump force (Goku,Luffy,Naruto) which is the first 5 minutes of the game.
However, for the story mode the hero will have to regroup members by simply doing their side quests, otherwise none of them will be available for story content. Once the team selection is made the team will phase another player or Ai who also have a team of three. All the heroes Share the same healthbar, Speed and the same Energy bar. During compat
the player controls one hero which they 're allowed to swap.
Square is used for light attack and triangle for heavy. Holding down any of the two will cause more damage and will also break the enemy guard if they re blocking. Blocking is achieved with R1 which in combination with L3 will cause the defender to slide and dodge. X is used for Jumping and circle is the grap/ throw. L1 is used to charge towards the opponent
in order to close the distance between the two players. L2 is used for assist and swap. To elaborate tapping L2, will cause the player to swap his character with his second one, this can be done when the hero is alone or even during a combo. Holding it down on the other hand will cause the hero to cast a skill as an assist. Keep in mind, the hero who will
assist will be the hero chosen second. ( the Game follows the rotation of 1,2,3. The 1st hero will never be able to call the assist of the 3rd.) R2 when pressed will charge the energy bar of the hero and at the same time open a menu with certain skills. The skills are attached to the four buttons (X,Square,Triangle and Circle.) The skills found in Triangle, Square
and circle can be used at any time given that the energy is charged. R2 + X is always the Ultimate of the hero and it only becomes available if the hero deals and receives alot of damage. On the top left the player can see the hero currently in use, their Hp and Energy, at the characters profile theres a yellow square that slowly fills up. When the profile picture
is fully covered by the yellow bar, it means that the player can use their ultimate with R2+X. Another way to take advantage of the yellow bar, is for the player to awaken the heroes hidden abilities. (Certain heroes awaken to their forms after casting their ultimates.) Awakenning abilities causes the heroes to deal more damage, tank more and attack faster. For example,
Goku/Trunks/Vegeta will turn Super Saiyan, Seiya will wear his golden Pegasus form, Naruto will awaken his sage form and etc. The player can also choose to start a normal combo and during it awaken their heroes powers and have the other two members to join the fight. If the enemy combo the player they can use L1 for a free get out of the combo card. Perfect blocking an
attack will stand the enemy and allow the player to combo of it.
The negative critisism the game received over the past 3 years is that the compat feels repetitive. It's a concept that although it has options they dont feel as polish and as clean as other games of it's genre. Furthermore, it's easily to abuse certain skills to cheat and gain the victory. For example, skills like "Stun granade" and "sword of Hope" are cheap to use and
are unblockable that deal alot of damage. The concept idea is simple, dash to the opponent with L1 and then use that grap special. The combat of the game also feels more like a "Mash to win game" than master the combos. For example, in dragon ball fighters the players have to take advantage of all mechanicks to achieve great combos/ damage and combos. But if the defense of
fighterz is that its a 2D fighter, a better example is Naruto Ninja Storm series and even Demon Slayer. These two games allowed for more mechanicks and more defending options. For example in Naruto, the players are given a number of Subtitude Jutsu that allows anyone to escape a combo or special at any time outside of normal Block. This is what Jump force has but its only one,
and once it's used the defender is doomed to be attacked. Another major critisism the game received was the fact that all heroes share the same life bar and stamina which might cause the game to end faster.
Music and Graphics
The music and the graphics are unique to the game and came with a mixture of reviews. The music knows how to set the mood. Whether the hero is with Light discussing various mysteries, or frieza threatening the world. Although it is not as memorabe as music found in other games it's still nice. There are no iconic songs found in the series like Dragonball, One piece etc and there was no
need for them. The voice acting found in the voice acted series is really good as all the original voice actor minus Ryuk reprized their roles. The new actors who voiced the original designed heroes for the game also do an amazing job voicing the three heroes. the graphicks of the game also came with a mixture of revies. First of all all sceneries look amazingly realistic. The game's plot is
set in the real world however, the jump world also interferes resulting in locations like Hidden leaf village from Naruto appearring in what assumed is England9based on the red busses and red Telephone booths. The statue of Liberty seems to have transfered over to planet Namek and other. This map concept is interesting with honestly an amazing job on making a realistic approach on iconic Jump
locations. The heroes on the other hand came with a more negative wave of thoughs. Although some look good, some others look scary. For example the hero of Goku although looks good whilst on base form, when he transforms into super saiyan there's a weird Aura found in the clothing. Some faces like Trunks and Sasuke although they re accurate to their design the somehow look weird with Trunks have
a small head and Sasuke having "Bubblely eyes". One thing the game did Fantastically is the Destruction that occurs when legends fight. All of the maps have Destructive environments with trees, poles etc breaking when a clash occurs near by or a blast clashes nearby. The same can be told about the heroes. Everyone (not the Custom Character) begins to fight with their normal attire.
However, the more they re being damaged their clothings gets ripped. For example, Deku begins with his outfit in perfect form, when damaged to 70%-80% his right sleeve is removed with a few scratch marks but when he is below 50% his shirt is torned, he is filled with scratch, cuts, dirt and blood. Every hero has these three outfits states, whether they re extremely visual or a smaller change.
For example, Yugi loses his coat when early damaged and then gets a few cuts and dirt.
State in 2021
The game constantly received plenty of updates including several DLC heroes .
It has a total of 2 Season passes, that the players can purchase. Bandai Namco who published the game announced that the game will soon
stop receiving updates and balances as the Season pass Two will be the
final DLC the game will receive.
Furthermore,It is confirmed that the game will be soon removed from the online store
and that anyone who didnt purchased the game will not be capable to purchasing it or te DLCs.
Those who purchased the game and the DLC will be capable of downloading them even when the game
is removed. The same can be told for all Online "competitive Tournaments" and Events. Ferbuary 2022 is the date Jump Force will be removed.
Final thoughs
The game is not a must play by any means but for anyone purchasing it will definetely find some sort of enjoyment. After all this is a Playground filled with anime Action figures for everyone to enjoy
It is not a hard game to pick it up and it has some amazing realism (Destructive Environment+ Destructive clothinig). The main story of the game lasts approximately 8-10 hours and has a nice narrative. It suffers from
alot of loading screens (No problem for the Ps5 BUT not the case for the Ps4). The combat of the game eventually will feel repetitive and the players wont feel as if they have mastered the mechanicks but more like the mashed
to win. If the game is worth it or not, it's up to you decide, but keep in mind the Game Wont be available in 2 months time. It is worth mentioning that the game is almost always on sale with hilariously low prices such as
5 euros (£4,75) for the Deluxe edition , which honestly is not a bad deal for the content you receive.
This type of games usually struggle to tell a good story, as there are so many heroes available and most are very different with each other. This time arround the studio did,the most popular function at the time.Custom character creation.So the entire story
has your character as the Main protagonist of the story. The game begins with a cutscene of a war breaking in the middle of the street. Out of nowhere, Frieza (an Iconic Dragon ball Villain) appears and blasts the world bringing chaos and destruction. Goku( main
Dragonball hero) appears and fights with Frieza. Frieza in order to escape, attacked a pedestrian to get Goku's attention of him. The pedestrian is about to die, but Future Trunks(another Dragon ball hero) tries to keep the pedestrian alive. His only option to keep
the person alive, was to inject him with a cube that will reborn the pedestrian as a hero. Once the player creates their custom hero, they re instantly regrouped by the heroes. Back in the base, the hero is quickly introduced to the concept of the game. Basically,
someone is trying to merge the real world with the world of Jump. The heroes joined an organization called the Jump Force whose goal is to return the worlds back to normal. Through the tale that proceeds, the heroes of jump force become aware that the bad guys from
each of the heroes worlds, joined forces with the person behind all this and they re trying to prevent Jump force from ruinning their leaders plans. Further more through the story of the game, the hero will have to help the jump heroes around by regrouping other people into
the organization, help them train and overall become a team.
