JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle is a Tekken style game which has been out for some time in Japan, but has just been made available for western audiences. The game itself involves a roster of different characters that you can use in the story mode, campaign mode and versus mode. These characters are all great to use offering various combat strengths and weaknesses to contend with. The art style here is extremely unique. It may be off putting for some, but I found it to be quite beautiful in its own way. The soundtrack is also fantastically done offering clear and crisp audio cues at precisely the right time.

Sadly though the game does not cater for an open audience, just like many Japanese manga imports that are based on TV shows and comics, they rely heavily on the hope that you at least know something about the series or have watched the shows. I dived straight into the story, which for me was fairly confusing and quite uninspiring, the writing tries to be funny but ends up being a mess.

The campaign also seems like it was developed plainly to make money as competing in battles drains an energy bar which doesn’t last long, offering you to either purchase more or wait a lengthy amount of time until you can fight again prompting me to stay away from this mode all together.

The most fun I had with this game came in the form of versus mode, which you can play against A.I, a friend with a controller or an online opponent, this by far seemed the best mode of all. It didn’t really require prior knowledge of the series and therefore I could divulge in an intense battle whilst enjoying the overall aesthetic.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle mixes up level designs too, offering various in game hazards that you can use to your advantage whilst fighting against your opponents, these moments were simply, awesome!

Be warned though, the game does not hold your hand, in fact, it doesn’t even teach you the basics so trial an error is the only way to truly learn the various button combos and moves.  While there is  an array of characters to unlock as well as some fun to be had, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle falls short for the new comer. If you are a fan of fighting games or a fan of Jojo, you may have some fun with this title as you will no doubt understand it better. If you have no idea what this game is or who the characters are then it is most likely that you won’t get much enjoyment from the game itself. 

Sure, I had fun fighting for a few hours at a time whilst enjoying the art, but overall my time with this game ended up seeming fairly flat.