When Jump Force was first revealed to the world, it was like a dream coming true for all the Shonen Jump fans. The game was supposed to be a celebration of fifty years Shonen Jump, including a playable roster of over forty characters from sixteen different anime shows. It wanted the crown of ultimate crossover game but sadly, dreams don’t always come true.
The story
When you first boot up Jump Force, you’ll immediately be thrown into the story. It’s all about the so-called ‘Venoms’. These mysterious creatures changed the Shonen world for good, forcing different worlds to merge while even forcing some of the worlds to crash with the Earth. It’s here where your story starts. At the start of the game, you’re able to create your own character, the editor offers enough variation to create the fighter you envisioned. Once created, you join the Jump Force, fighting side by side with iconic characters like Naruto, Goku, and Luffy.
This all sounds amazing but in reality, the story is a bit too much of the same over and over again. You’ll face the Venoms time after time again, using the same combat mechanics as before. After each fight, you run around in the central hub world and select your next missions. There’s nothing really thrilling about it and that’s a shame. If you manage to look past it, you can fight through the story mode for the cutscenes, because those are the only remarkable thing about the mode. These scenes are extremely colorful and introduce you to a wide variety of well-known characters. Is it worth it in the end? Not really, but I’m sure the real fans will appreciate the efforts the team has put in the cutscenes.
Ready to fight!
Now, having a story mode in a fighting game is fun but it’s not the beating heart of Jump Force, especially since it’s rather broken, to be honest. The focus is on combat, of course. In Jump Force, you’ll always fight one on one in a team of three selected characters. During your match, you can easily switch between your other characters with a push of the button. The trick is to combine three different fighters who can make up for each other’s weaknesses. Combining a long-ranged character with a character who likes to fight up close and personal, is a wise decision. At first, you’ll struggle to keep up with the insane pacing of it all.
Jump Force is a very chaotic fighter, filled with special attacks and high-paced combos. At first, you’ll feel lost and you’ll have to learn each and every move step by step. Launching a special attack after a special attack is overwhelming but it’s one of the best ways to easily take out your opponent. Sounds unfair? Well, it isn’t. Blocking and breaking a combo of the other team is crucial for your survival. If you time it right, you can turn your blocking into a counterattack and turn the advantage towards you. You’ll need some practice for sure but in its core, Jump Force really offers some fun, if you’re playing it against an offline friend.
Technical struggle
The main problem with Jump Force is the crazy amount of technical issues. For some reason, the team went for a realistic approach of the characters and environments, dropping the more cartoony look of let’s say the Naruto or Dragon Ball fighting games. I’m not really a big fan of these visuals since all characters look like they’re constantly angry or in pain, which isn’t always the case. That being said, the new engine also comes at the high price of insanely long loading screens. Before you can actually start a fight, you’ll be stuck watching a loading screen for a couple of minutes. It’s something I truly don’t understand. The game is far less demanding compared to other blockbuster games and yet, the team didn’t manage to shorten the loading times. As it is now, it feels like I have spent more time looking at a loading screen than I was actually fighting my opponents, a shame.
But, the problems don’t stop there. The game also suffers from severe framerate drops and weird camera standpoints. If you’re playing with a friend, the camera will focus on the character who’s performing best at that moment. This means that the other character easily gets lost in the background, giving the ‘losing’ player a huge disadvantage. Losing a fight because the camera didn’t focus on you or because it got stuck behind an object again just isn’t fair and it’s extremely frustrating.
If you’re playing with a friend on your couch, you can forgive some of these flaws to some degree but having the same issues while playing online is unforgiving. Again, remember that it takes some time before you can actually start an online fight and once you’re finally in, you don’t want to keep bumping into bugs. It’s sad and I hope the team still manages to fix it with some patch but I’m afraid this game released in a shape that’s beyond repair.
Conclusion:
It’s a shame to admit and I wish I could deliver another message but Jump Force isn’t the game we were all hoping for. The combat feels broken and unfair due to some major technical issues. Combine this with extremely long loading times and a shallow story and you’ll immediately understand why you’ll need to rethink if you want to add this game to your collection. Sure, if you’re a hardcore fan of Shonen Jump and you got some friends to play the game with, you’ll have some fun. If not, it’s better to go for other fighting games currently on the market.
5/10
Tested on PlayStation 4 Pro
