Big crossovers are usually about celebrating everything unique and exciting about the individual franchises involved, and yet somehow, J-Stars Victory Vs.+ manages to feel bland and routine. Though it pulls from 45 vibrant years of manga and anime history, everything from the story to the combat is conveyed in such a visually dull way that it robs the proceedings of the sense of spectacle befitting well-loved universes like Dragon Ball Z and Rurouni Kenshin.
Granted, this is a PlayStation 3 game that’s been mildly polished up for the PlayStation 4, but even compared to last-gen games like the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series, J-Stars looks and sounds lackluster. I was ready to feel excited when pulling off signature ultimate attacks with my favorite characters, and for brief moments, I did. But all too often, the ugly-looking stages and rudimentary character models kept the fan in me from coming out to have a good time. As someone who could barely keep from yelling move names along with characters in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle, I’m supremely disappointed with how J-Stars looks and sounds.Story mode is a huge letdown too. Instead of taking us through fan-favorite story arcs and iconic battles or building up to climactic what-if scenarios, all we get is a hum-drum tale of a parallel universe where characters from throughout the Shonen Jump canon all exist together, for...reasons. There are four arcs to choose, but they’re all essentially the same except with different playable characters. And if you want to switch from one story to another, you’re essentially starting from scratch, so there isn’t much reason to play all four.
Even one time through the four- to six-hour campaign felt like too much. All you really do is wander around the overworld, heading to the next bland fight on your map with a bunch of bland story filler in between. At key points, you’ll get an upgrade for your ship that allows you to explore more of the map, but there really isn’t anything to see other than brief, throwaway cameos from different manga characters looking to fight you in order to “train.” It’s Sonic Adventure syndrome, where gameplay is just too broken up by clumsily executed light-adventure elements to ever settle into an enjoyable rhythm.
The story isn’t even presented in an interesting way. There aren’t any cutscenes once you’re past the spectacular opening one, and very little voice acting in general. Most scenes boil down to static portraits and plain text, mainly made up of characters straining to work in show references to remind us, the fans, that they know we’re watching. Oh look, it’s Naruto, and he’s fighting to become the next Hokage and he can’t wait to eat at Ramen Ichiraku afterwards. Thanks for reminding us! Luffy can’t go a single scene without mentioning that he wants to become the Pirate King. For the non-anime fan, just imagine a Batman game where Bruce won’t stop talking about how he’s motivated by the death of his parents, and you have an idea of how reductive J-Stars’ portrayal of its characters feels. It’s all very slapdash and thrown together with little reverence for the great shows and books the characters come from.
I could forgive a lot of this if there were a fun brawler underneath, but there isn’t. Even in its very best moments, J-Stars is merely a competent, simplistic brawler, unable to present interesting decisions to make or tactics to employ. There’s a ton of characters to unlock and play as, but they mostly feel disappointingly similar. A couple of support characters have novel abilities, but I easily settled in to one or two really effective attack chains and stuck with them – it’s kind of like playing Dynasty Warriors, but without the thrill of downing hundreds of foes at a time.More Reviews
Verdict
Precious little of the Shonen Jump magic shines through the one-note fighting and poorly written story. It’s a shame, too, seeing as how diverse the character representation is (as opposed to focusing on the popular stuff). But even as a fan of Hunter x Hunter, Bleach, JoJo’s, and some of the other great series represented here, J-Stars Victory Vs.+ completely failed to ignite that fandom into a genuine desire to play.
