- [Mitchell] With the weekly Shonen Jump comic magazine
hitting its 50th anniversary last year,
Jump Force is meant to be a celebration
of the many legendary anime and manga series
born from its pages.
And to its credit, Jump Force certainly looks the part
on the surface.
It's got flashy combat,
40 characters hailing from 16 different series,
along with a unique aesthetic
that takes popular manga/anime characters
and places them into the real world.
Disappointingly, though, Jump Force falters
at just about every other point.
It's fighting system is as basic as its unambitious story.
And, combined with a number of smaller issues,
it adds up to an altogether underwhelming anniversary gift.
Jump Force puts you into the shoes of a random passerby
who gets caught up in the battle
between Jump heroes and villains in Times Square,
with little context given
as to how and why things are happening.
You get killed, revived with superpowers, and from there,
you're free to build your character as you see fit.
Unfortunately, the character editor
doesn't have a ton of options.
But there are at least a couple of nods
to anime characters that didn't make it into the roster.
So you can make custom versions of characters
like Kuwabara, Urahara, and Kurama, just to name a few.
Or you can just do this.
(speaking foreign language)
In general, Jump Force's plot takes itself
a little too seriously and misses out on a huge opportunity
for some fun interactions between beloved characters.
The bland story is also done no favors
by the fact that most of the cut-scenes
are devoid of voice acting.
The few interesting moments,
like Kenshin challenging Zoro to a duel
over his strict teaching methods,
are left completely silent and lifeless.
The biggest problem with the story though
is how you progress through it.
You're not given way points to show you
where you have to go for the next mission,
upgrading your character is needlessly convoluted,
and towards the end,
the difficulty spikes in the worst possible way.
Enemies can shave off nearly half your health
with simple combos or special moves,
while their AI remains as dumb as ever.
It's artificial difficulty at its worst.
(speaking foreign language)
Before the feeling of shallowness sets in,
Jump Force's combat is a lot of flashy and simple fun
for the first few hours.
Matches are 3v3, with a two-button combat system
made up of light attacks, called rush attacks,
and heavy attacks.
Rush attacks can be mashed to do an auto-combo
that results in the opponent getting ping-ponged
back and forth across the arena,
while heavy attacks are much slower,
but can be canceled into at just about any point
of a rush combo.
You can also close the distance extremely quickly
with either a high-speed dash tied to your mobility meter
or by simply tagging in your teammate,
which facilitates a very fast pace to the action.
Each character also comes with four special moves,
performed by holding the right trigger
and pressing one of the face buttons.
Finding the right combination of rush attacks,
heavy attacks, knowing when you can throw in an assist,
and then knowing which special move to finish with
is generally the way to find the big-damage combos.
And it can be fun to take a character into Training Mode
and figure those combos out.
(speaking foreign language)
To its credit, developer Spike Chunsoft
did an admirable job of making sure
everything has some sort of counter.
Auto-combo spam can be beaten by blocks, sidesteps,
or my charging armored heavy attacks.
Predictable dashes can be blown up
by invulnerable-on-startup special moves or counters,
and excessive guards can be broken
with powerful unblockables or throws.
There is also an emergency escape that allows you
to get out of a combo while you're getting hit
at the expense of your entire mobility meter.
All this is a fine start,
but that's about as deep as it goes.
Despite being a 3v3 tag fighter,
the tag mechanics feel like an afterthought,
since all three characters share the same life bar.
The assist maneuvers don't feel
particularly well thought-out,
and since combos mostly only start from a rush attack,
there's no real need to learn anything
beyond one combo per character.
This makes every fight feel like it plays out
the exact same way and leads to the combat
getting stale pretty quickly.
Playing online or locally against friends
is Jump Force's saving grace,
as what little depth combat has
is intrinsically tied to reading your opponent.
That doesn't work against the predictable and dumb AI.
In my experience playing the online prerelease,
the performances held up very well,
with lag feeling like a non-issue.
(speaking foreign language)
Above all else, Jump Force is just lacking in polish.
The load times are long,
the frame rate in the most important cut-scenes is terrible,
there's no way to skip cut-scenes,
the animations outside of combat are just bad,
and there's no English dub to round out the long list
of relatively minor issues.
But they all add up.
If you've got some like-minded anime fans
who are down to smash some buttons
and watch the sparks fly, Jump Force's fighting system
allows for at least a few hours of shallow fun
before it gets stale and repetitive.
The bland story feels half-baked
and never does anything interesting
with its impressive roster of beloved characters
who have rarely or never had the chance to meet before,
making this celebration of 50 years of weekly Shonen Jump
a disappointment overall.
For more gameplay of Jump Force, check out our videos
showcasing Yugi, Jotaro, and more.
And for everything else, keep it here on IGN.