But none of it really enriches the experience, it only makes the tougher fights and cheesier opponents feel more surmountable. Confident players can choose to accept the challenge as is, or before the match begins purchase up to three player buffs from a merchant to help even the odds. In an apparent nod to SNK’s King of Fighters franchise, the Story Mode mixes things up a bit by giving the player and or his opponent buffs and or weaknesses that affect gameplay for the duration of the match. However, character movement by comparison to that game feels incredibly sluggish, and the move sets as a whole are so limited that players will likely find themselves spamming the same key attacks over and over until they win. Aside from the dodging ability and the Stands, it all seems very Super Street Fighter IV, at least on paper. Players have three attack buttons (Weak, Mid and Strong), an axis button that allows them to dodge into the background or foreground, a button that summons their “Stand” (a spiritual manifestation of their psychic energy) to their side as a secondary character and allowing for an additional set of attacks), and special attacks or cancels that can be enacted by pressing two or all three attack buttons in concert when their Special Attack gauge is filled. However, there’s also a fighting game here, and while it isn’t terrible, it’s not incredibly deep either.Ĭontrary to the game’s presentation, the controls in JoJo feel very bare bones. Anyone with even a passing appreciation for JoJo or anime in general could literally spend hours watching and listening to this game with enjoyment. Even the music evokes the same trademark mix of weighty, orchestral tunes, hip late-70s style rock, heavy metal and 90s-inspired Japanese jazz.
There’s also transgenderism in abundance, so leave your notions of what normal fighting games are like at the door.) From a visual and audio standpoint, everything is retained, from Araki’s sketch-line work to the ham-fisted anime voice acting of the TV show. It’s also an especially rare treat to see this sub-genre of fighting game pulled off so masterfully by CyberConnect2 studio, as the world and characters of appear to literally leap off Araki’s pages and spring to life in all their violently ridiculous, macho-beef-cake-meets-bishōnen (beautiful-boy) schlock that the manga and anime are known for.
Nowadays however, only a select number of fighting games have managed to survive, so it’s encouraging to see that niche titles like JoJo are seeing release in the West, thanks in large part to the increased adoption of digitally-distributed games via online platforms such as the PlayStation Network. Gamers old enough to remember Street Fighter II‘s heyday in the 90s likely remember when novelty fighters like JoJo were a dime-a-dozen nearly every publisher in the game industry and their grandmother had a fighting game out, and this was especially true for games based on Japanese manga and anime.