The fighting arenas – ranging from New York, Mexico, Japan, Paris, and New Zealand – are vibrant and packed full of detail, while the characters are suitably stylish, retaining their iconic designs. There’s definitely sparkles of brilliance throughout Jump Force. The frame rate coughs a bit during hectic moments, too, and even basic movements, like running, look incredibly dodgy. Whether you’re loading up a menu to fiddle with your avatar settings, or waiting for a match or cutscene to fire up, you’ll be doing a lot of hanging about reading the same ruddy hint messages over and over again. Jump Force is also marred by some annoying technical mishaps, the most egregious being the load times. Hell, even levelling up feels inconsequential. Meanwhile, all the equippable skills and buffs are handy to have in a pinch, but there’s just no real incentive for hunting them out when your basic repertoire gets the job done. The action isn’t smooth either, with erratic movements and choppy frame rates eliminating any sense of fluidity to bouts, and at times I found it difficult to figure out just what the fuck was going on. The problem is, you don’t need to you can literally win battles mashing out your rudimentary combo, maybe side-stepping here and there, and that’s it. I actually tried to squeeze as much out of the combat system as I could, and yes, it is satisfying. Elsewhere, the mobility gauge accommodates a whiff of tactical play, as you can dash your enemy when it’s full enough or dodge attacks with a meticulously-timed button whack. You can also execute other special abilities via R2, which, while not as powerful as Awakening attacks, are still aesthetically pleasing and help spice up the ebb and flow of combat. Awakenings punctuate the flow of battle nicely, and look bloody awesome too from massive fireballs, huge sand monsters, stylish swords shenanigans, and countless more, these can turn the tide of battle and inject a nice bit of strategy into the mix as you have to plan and time them well. These are governed by a meter that must first be charged, so you can’t spam them willy-nilly. Your Awakening attack, which is basically a health-zapping super move unique to each fighter, can be activated by holding R2 and hitting the X button. To its credit, the game does try to mix things up. You’ll fly all over the place, duffing up foes in mid-air, send them crashing to the ground creating massive craters in the process. I mean, there’s no question about it Jump Force wears its manga trappings proudly. Most of the time you can get away with mashing square and triangle for standard and tough blows, respectively, which can inflict a surprising amount of damage and send your opponent flying across the screen. Pleasingly, Jump Force’s fisticuffs are absolutely mental, and pretty easy to get to grips with. You can customise them as much as you want, but at the end of the day they’re still a blank slate whose contributions to the story could have easily been filled by someone of more importance in Shonen Jump’s illustrious history. Meanwhile, your main character is some random casualty who is revived using those magical cubes I mentioned earlier. Given the source material, I expected something with a bit more pazazz befitting of its manga heritage. There’s hardly any voice acting going on, so you’re forced to read walls of text as everyone stands there silently, stiff as a board, with all the emotional nuance of Mr. The issue here is that the cutscenes that propel the story are… well, just a bit naff. Most of the time the baddies are Venoms, ordinary citizens who have been corrupted by Umbras Cubes, although along the way you’ll come across classic manga characters who need a pummelling to free them of the cubes’ influence. If you were to explain it to the bloke down the pub, it goes a bit like this: Frieza and his baddies from the manga dimensions (known colloquially as Jumps here) invade our world, and it’s up to Goku, Luffy, Naruto, Vegeta and chums to kick their arse and save the day. Jump Force’s story chucks you right in the middle of things. Problem is, it misses the mark in so many areas that even a casual fan like me can tell it’s a bit of a letdown for such an important milestone. Big brands such as Lenovo and Samsung are also starting to offer Black Friday discounts early, with many more to follow.Ĭlearly though, Jump Force is a love letter to fans: a 50th birthday pressie from Shonen Jump magazine, offering a massive 40-something roster that makes it perhaps the biggest crossover royale this side of Super Smash Bros. Early Black Friday deals are starting to go live on Amazon & Best Buy.
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