All About The Style | Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle Review

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is the second longest running manga series currently and it is also one of the best selling manga series as well. Calling Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure popular is an understatement. So it really isn’t a surprise to see a video game spin-off, and it is even less shocking for it to be a fighting game. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle is the fighting games fans of the manga have been waiting for, but as a fighting game alone, it isn’t the best one available right now.

Within seconds of booting this game up you will see the all too familiar style of Jojo. The in-your-face, quirky, and all around outrageousness of Jojo doesn’t wait to blind you with all its dazzling goodness. Well, after they make you go to PSN and download content. It’s free, but it’s foreshadowing to how much of the game unfolds later. Either way, the presentation is certainly familiar and a welcomed relief.

Stylish Graphics

The art direction wanted to bring the style from the manga right into the video game adaptation and it was certainly a success. The character animations are cel-shaded aggressively to give off that manga vibe. The backgrounds and environments may be a little dull, but a lot of work went to making the characters stand out. Easily one of the most appealing aspects in All Star Battle is the ultimate moves. They are flashy to an insane point and were always a blast to pull off. Not only did the intensity of the special attack animations match the manga style, they gave the game an even bigger jolt of energy. It’s a jolt that is greatly needed, because the combat can become stale at times.

The gameplay follows a formula of most 3D fighters. There was nothing new here that blew me away. You have your standard quick punch, hard punch, kick, dodge, throw, etc.  The overall controls are fairly straightforward, but there are definitely deeper combinations to discover. The game doesn’t really help you much in that regard. I was really hoping for a more detailed command-list, but I was able to pick up the controls instantly from experience with other fighters. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This setup means the game plays well for the most part, and there is lots of fun to be had. It also just means there is nothing extraordinarily special about All Star Battle—besides the Jojo flair that is.

I had fun with the combat and there were plenty of intense moments, but overall the game felt slow. There were plenty of fights where an enemy hung back and just dished out little long range attacks. They barely did any real damage, but it was a hassle chasing them down constantly. The sluggish movements didn’t help, and unless you are attacking, the characters do not react well to general movement. A lot of the fights also involved people constantly walking backwards, because that’s how you block. That also meant the fighters were always moving out of range from one another. There wasn’t that consistent fluidity that many fighting games have now-a-days, and instead, you are left with some awkwardly slow battles. Not always, but sometimes.

Stylish Combat

All Star Battle is a slower game than most fighters I have played. Even dealing with all the text and loading screens slows you down even more. You want fast paced action, especially if it is Jojo related. So I was upset I had to sit through loading screen after loading screen to have a slow paced fight, or a split second of action followed by many seconds of awkwardly chasing down your opponent.

Most fighting games understand that people may get tired of beating an opponent in a standard fight so those games try to incorporate other modes. All Star Battle has a few modes, but they all feel the same, and some of them I didn’t have any fun with. There is your standard arcade battle where you try to go through eight opponents. Then there  is the story mode to retell the Jojo series, but each story is described in a matter of sentences so there is no real weight there. This works great for fans of the series who will be hit with nostalgia and relieve the manga moments in their head. But for newcomers, they will easily skip over everything, if they could that is, because they will still end up waiting for a loading screen.

The main problem with the story mode is the lack of diversity. It is essentially one on one battles with slight modifications—always to your disadvantage of course. A majority of the time you will fight the same character in the same location multiple times in a row. I understand the reason why they do this has to do with the story that is being told, but I still don’t want to fight the same battle three times in a row. Yes the difficulty increases each fight, and yes the modifications change between battles, but you can always use the same strategy to win. The story mode doesn’t last that long for each character either, making it contain an overall shallow feel.

All About The Style

There is also a campaign mode that is entirely online. It sounds nice at first. You fight a computer AI that was customized by another player and this is how you get new character animations, clothes, and other fun little stuff. Theoretically, this mode could be very deep and last you many hours—it won’t.

You have a battery meter of energy points, and it takes one energy point to search for an opponent. Most of the time you will fight a random fighter, but every so often you will get to fight a boss. It is not nearly as exciting as it sounds. Boss fights are like regular fights, except after beating the opponent, they have another health bar that decreases. Then you have to search for another fight, find the boss again, win the fight once more, and then their health will go down even more. You can increase the amount of damage you to do the overall health by spending more energy points. Don’t get carried away though, because energy points can run out and then you have to wait five minutes to get a new one—or you know, pay money for more. This online setup is heavily influenced by microtransaction and the fact you can’t even play without having energy points is proof of that. I suppose Westerns are lucky, because the original wait time for getting more energy was twenty minutes. They tend to give you a lot of energy points randomly so most likely won’t have to wait, but either way, this entire concept just seemed strange to incorporate into the game.

The game modes may feel shallow and that can make the entire game feel on the shallow side as well. However, there are lots of characters, and certainly lots of moves to have a blast with. There is always fun in fighting games trying to new characters and learning all their techniques. There are also different stances for characters that open up even more attacks. There is a lot of fun when it comes to the fighting, and seeing how this is a fighting game, that’s exactly what you want. The downside to that is the balancing issues. Some fighters are unquestionably overpowered. That can certainly make for some fun battles when playing as them, but it can also lead to a lot of frustrations when fighting against them.

Seriously…It’s All About The Style.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle is the fighting games fans of the series have been waiting for. All the quirkiness, action, and outrageous style are here for fans to enjoy. Anyone who isn’t a fan of the series isn’t going to find anything special in this title. The fighting is fun, but nothing amazing to break new grounds. The game modes aren’t diverse or entertaining enough where any one will hook you. The fighting was definitely fun at times, but not out of this world. Playing with friends is certainly fun, but when isn’t that the case. Essentially, All Star Battle is for Jojo fans, but for anyone who has no idea who Jojo is should find another fighting game to occupy their time.

This review is based off  a review copy of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle developed by Cyberconnect2 and provided by Namco Bandai Games.