Review — Jump Force. Beloved characters from the world’s…
By: Jeroen Van Rossem
Tags: Reviews, Gaming, Games, Videogames, Japanese

When Jump Force was announced at last year’s E3, it generated a lot of excitement, as people would get to play as their favorite manga characters from the Shonen Jump brand (hence the name Jump Force). While we already had a crossover game with J-Stars Victory VS, the improved graphics, the story mode and the fact that Jump Force would also be available on Xbox One and PC warranted the excitement for the game. But as with all hypes, the question whether the game will live up to it imposes itself.

Heroes to the Rescue

As you start up the game, you’ll be asked to create an avatar. While the options are somewhat limited, they feel sufficient and are pretty much in line with what you’d expect from a manga inspired videogame. This avatar will be your main character in the story mode where you’ll follow the adventures of the many iconic characters from Shonen Jump’s mangas as they battle against an invasion of so-called Venoms, an army of mind-controlled people wrecking havoc on our world and the worlds of the different heroes. After an attack on Earth, where you get injured, you get revived thanks to a cybernetic device called an Umbras cube, which also awakens the hero powers within you. You soon join the Jump Force, an interdimensional force created to fight of the army of Venoms and the evil culprit leading them.

Soon after you’ll be transported to the Jump Force’s HQ, which is a central area similar to The Tower in Destiny. I was very surprised by this area, as it opened up potential possibilities of what the game could be. Seeing other players running around, would Jump Force also have social features compared to live service games such as Destiny or The Division? Would I be able to undertake missions together with other players? What about events with social activities? Well, in the end, the HQ is just a gathering place where people show off their own creations and can also challenge each other, something that rarely happens.

There are some shops in the HQ, one general and three related to the three factions in the game, a reward counter, a counter where you can select online or offline battles and a mission counter. The key missions at the counter advance the story, but there’s a whole range of free missions that are more like challenges where you can try to go for the best score. So the HQ is basically an overly complex menu, one where you can also run around freely and interact with other people, both NPC’s and online players if you’re playing online.

A Legendary Gathering

While the story is serviceable, you shouldn’t expect anything groundbreaking. It’s a classic hero getting recruited into a fight of evil vs good, with a twist near the end. Many of the missions also consist of liberating characters from the corrupted Umbras cubes’ influence and recruiting them into the Jump Force. These heroes you’ll be recruiting are of course the main attraction of the game. Among them, you’ll find iconic characters from franchises like Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Rurouni Kenshin etc. In total, 40 playable are included from 16 series, with Light Yagami from Death Note also present as a non-playable character.

Each of these characters are drawn in a style that is inspired by their comic book style. So they pretty much look like their manga counterpart, but only digital. There are some noticeable absentees though, like Assassination Classroom’s Koro-sensei, Tokyo Ghoul’s Kaneki, Claymore’s Clare and Priscilla, Gintama’s Gintoki and My Hero Academia’s All Might, although that last one’s been reportedly leaked as one of the 9 DLC characters. But the current roster is still pretty impressive and for those who’ve always wanted to see a battle between Naruto and Goku or Kenshiro and Jotaru Kujo will feel right at home here. Add the fact that the outfits and moves you can equip on your avatar, makes this game the ultimate fan service for fans of Shonen Jump.

While you’ll be playing the story mode with your avatar and some of these characters as support, the game truly shines when you go head to head with other opponents, either offline or online. In these versus modes, each player picks 3 fighters for his team from the whole playable roster and the custom characters. The fighting mechanics themselves are closer to games like My Hero One’s Justice, J-Stars Victory VS or even Dissidia Final Fantasy NT than say Dragon Ball FighterZ or Street Fighter. Meaning you can run freely on the 3D map and each character has a basic attack and some special attacks. The combat isn’t particularly difficult, but there is a nice mechanic that features ‘High Speed Counters’ and ‘High Speed Dodges’ to break your opponent’s combos. Considering you’ll be launching insanely powerful and over the top attacks at each other, the combat at least looks pretty impressive and it is actually fun to play.

The game does have some downsides though. The biggest of these, is the fact that the game is bloated with loading screens. When undertaking a mission, between the 2–3 cutscenes and the actual fight, you’ll be treated to no less than 5 loading screens. Even something as simple as changing an outfit piece for your character will trigger several loading screens. At times, I had the impression I was looking more at loading screens than actually playing the game! Secondly, something feels off with the graphics. While the textures look decent, the game doesn’t seem as sharp as it should be and when turning the camera you’re also treated to an ugly motion blur. There’s also some weird design choices in regard to the user interface, like having to engage with counter clerks with the same button you use to exit menus while navigating through the menus is done with another button.

So all in all, Jump Force clearly has some issues, some more frustrating than others, but the gameplay is fun and enjoyable. Especially if you’re a manga fan, you will certainly find some amusement in this game. It is best enjoyed with some friends on a lousy Sunday though, as the game is too casual for competitive minds and the story mode is somewhat disappointing in its writing and presentation.

3/5

Reviewed for Xbox One