Not a Fighting Fight - This is where the most famous manga heroes met to fight evil. And this is a great opportunity not only for fans of this culture, but also for fans of battle games to plunge into action that is full of legends. You met them in Dragonball Z, One Piece or Hunter X Hunter and now they are all together and measure their strength with each other. Who will become your biggest favorite?
You can become any of them, or oppose any of the rich collection of fighters with big, swollen eyes that are characteristic of Japanese-style animated characters. In the first place, however, you will create your own avatar, which will become the central character of the story. However, it is not just for decoration, although you can edit and dress it to taste (and available resources) at the beginning of the game and then in the stores in the central hub.
Your avatar is also a full-fledged warrior, who will initially choose one of three battle styles, and then enhance that by adjusting skills and talents. You can also buy them in the center, where you can buy character-enhancing booths with the option of buying and exchanging special attacks. In other stalls you choose game modes and missions - from free to story, which are gradually unlocked. Mostly insignificant NPCs roam in the aisles, but if you play in online mode, you will meet other live players as well, all reminiscent of small towns in traditional MMORPGs. For someone maybe a plus, it seemed a little useless, as there is virtually nothing going on in these areas, just running up for the choices that would be faster in the traditional menu. Even though Jump Force is trying to create an illusion of a functional virtual world, it is still just a more or less classic fighting game, in which it is not about discovering and exploring the country and its inhabitants, but only about static battles in arenas with limited space.
The creators tried to incorporate the center into the story, but there wasn't enough use for the hub, it's just about running from one person to another, which will entrust you with the task and give you some dry information. Most often you communicate with the head of Jump Force, which is similar to S.H.I.E.L.D., but iconic manga and anime characters gather here instead of Marvel's comic heroes. And you will be one of them and you will be part of one of the three teams that pretend to have a different focus and style. But the difference is simply that another group of fighters will accompany you based on your choice. So you choose according to sympathy and depending on whether you are closer to Goka, Luffy or Naruto, or the love they lead. But besides that, you will often have the opportunity to fight alongside other heroes, who you usually release during the storyline.
However, do not expect too much from the story, it is unoriginal and given very dry and boring. Accompanied by different characters, you are transferred to battlefields, where you beat your opponents, who are not really evil, just controlled by evil forces using special cubes. Or they are replicas. And when you defeat them and remove the dice, your opponents will join your side. This is repeated throughout the game without any twists and turns. It is a pity that the creators did not show the effort at least to create full-length scenes and additional animations, which would revive it a bit. The monotonous overlapping of the characters before the duel or briefing in the office is definitely nothing that can make you more involved in the storyline and not motivate you at all. You can go through the story at least for the form, but it does not give you emotion or leave an exceptional impression. But at least he'll get you a job.
While in your story your avatar usually comes into the fight and one or two characters that the game determines will match you in other modes, you choose any, usually three, fighters. The hallmark of this fighting game is that you have more characters under control. They never fight at the same time, but you switch them freely and share a common life. Similarly, it is with enemies. In fact, it is a one-on-one fight, with the tactics of changing heroes and occasionally activating a group attack. In combat, however, you use quite a variety of options that you apply to attack or defense.
The basis is normal punches and kicks that you can sprinkle on the enemy in quick succession. You can defend yourself by covering, dodging or escaping. However, an attacker can, under certain circumstances, break through the defense, be able to move quickly to the opponent, and jump in the counterattack. In addition, you apply special skills that use concentrated energy. These are visually very impressive attacks that can be triggered by a combination of two buttons you won't have a problem with. They cause a decent damage, but it takes a while for the opponent to prepare for them and are not always effective. During the fight, you can freely move in the field in any direction and throws away a lot in some overwhelming attacks. Sometimes, during the battle, there is chaos, which is a byproduct of impressive, but disturbing effects of superpowers. And you can feel helpless when your opponent spills you with a blast of blows that can only be partially covered or turned away.
Fighting characters gain experience and levels, and in addition to your avatar's ability to adjust the supportive character's ability in the center. It is worth mentioning clothes, which gradually tears during dramatic battles, so sometimes you start in a cloak and a tunic, but at the end you already have a naked torso and the hero looks strhane. This brings us to audiovisual processing. It is not surprising that the characters have Japanese dubbing, but of course you have English subtitles to understand them. It is a pity that only a part of the dialogues is spoken, not all the stories.
The graphics are nice. Not top-notch, but designed to fit the manga's comics with a comic-like touch. The battlefields are quite spacious and do not look bad, sometimes you notice the mirroring of water on the pea or other effects, but the interaction with the environment is virtually zero. Sometimes you would like to catch something and throw it to your opponent, but there is no such possibility.
And it would be stylish if not only were the warrior's garments ripped off, but there were signs of damage in the neighborhood, such as a crater, when you invoke a vast destructive ball and chase it at the enemy. While you will see a devastated environment briefly, after a while, everything is in its original state. It would be interesting to compare the cultivated space before the fight and the ruins that remain at the end. However, this is not a game error.
But what can disturb is frequent recording. With every change of place, brief dialogue, but also the editing of the character, the game reads the data - it is usually not as long as annoying. And when we criticize, we can blame the incompatible equipment of the hero on which the game makers base. At the same time, they are often pieces that are not related in any way. For example, I bought a helmet and after its deployment, the game canceled my elegant pants, which I chose before and replaced them with another piece. This is hard to understand.
Jump Force is good, slightly above average. Battles are dynamic and full of visual effects, but whatever the mode you choose, their progress is always the same, though, of course, there is a greater challenge to fight live players than with artificial intelligence. The unoriginal story tries to combine the heroes of different universities in a rather shabby way, its presentation is weak but fulfills its basic purpose. Hub - The MMO-style center is rather useless and does not enrich the game in any significant way, just running without a deeper meaning. It would be great for a 30-euro game, but when you have to pay more than 50 € for a standard, 90 € for a Deluxe and a hundred for a Ultimate Edition, it's not such a great offer. So at least until the game goes down to a reasonable price, it's not very tempting for ordinary players. But the orthodox fans of manga and anime can look at it a little differently and through pink glasses. They will especially see the heroes of their adored games pretty nicely in one place, so they will be more tolerant of the Jump Force and their ranking will be somewhat higher.