Jump Force Is Anime Fan Service Gone Super Saiyan

As I sat down to begin my playtime with Jump Force, the first thing to grab my attention was the sheer spectacle of the 40-strong roster. I probably took about five minutes just to scroll through it and bask in the delights of arguably some of the greatest fan-favourite characters across the anime/manga medium.

It is clear to see that Bandai Namco is going all out on unadulterated fan service in Jump Force: from Dragon Ball Z to Fist of the North Star, Naruto to Yu-Yu Hakusho, Bleach, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Yu-Gi-oh (yep, Yugi is a playable fighter), this game is abundantly clear about who it is catering to.

The format of the game is simple enough, though, taking a familiar 3 v 3 format and duking out across a range of environments, from famous anime arenas like Planet Namek to more familiar setting such as New York and Hong Kong. It has to be said that both the environments and character models look gorgeous so far, with the model portraying a more human-like take on the source material they are based on, respectively, but it must be said that some don’t pull it off as well as others (here’s looking at you, Blackbeard). It’s an odd choice, sure, but it goes without saying that no other title looks quite like it right now.

The 3v3 combat will surely draw comparisons to Dragon Ball FighterZ thanks to the ability to tag your line-up in and out of the match, but that’s about as similar as they get. The main difference is that with Jump Force you can’t swap between your characters as you see fit, as a press of L2 will swap you out to the next character in the order you selected them, so you’ll need to give some thought about which characters will best fulfil your group.

This selection will become all the more important as all three share the same health bar and special meters, so pick wisely. I can report from my battles that just because some characters are immediately cooler than others, *cough* Kenshiro *cough*, it doesn’t mean you can just go in and expect to treat every opponent the same because a close-range fighter like him will face difficulty from opposition with ranged attacks, like Ryo Saeba or Hisoka Morow, for example.

Before the fighting begins, a nice touch to note is the contextual character dialogue. Now, this will depend on which character you pick in your number one slot but you can be rewarded with some nice exchanges as a result. For example, Luffy will have a specific dialogue with Boa Hancock, so many players will get a kick out of these little in-game easter eggs.

While the fighting between characters, from a control perspective, was near identical, light and heavy attacks, grabs and blocks, each member of the Jump Force roster really comes into their own through their unique styles and special movesets, which both looked incredible and felt majorly satisfying to pull off – it will be a joy in of itself just to see the entire roster’s specials activated one-by-one. Honestly, seeing Vegeta deliver a gigantic energy blast to turn the tide of a battle was a treat to behold.

I did struggle to master the quick-blocking system to begin with (my playtest saw the difficulty ramped up a notch but pride be damned if I were to have it turned down), which highlighted that just mashing light and heavy attacks alone will not be enough to pick up a win in Jump Force. As my battles wore on into the afternoon, combining well-timed dodging along with special attacks and guard-breaking blocks were vital to my longevity.

Even this close to the full release, it’s easy to see to see how a confident and competent player will be able to easily juggle a lesser skilled player effortlessly between combo strikes and well-coordinated team swaps for a perfect victory. Jump Force will take a few matches to really get to grips with but I don’t anticipate it being as hard to master as the likes of Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Another detail from the battles to be appreciated is the real-time battle damage each character will sustain. Frankly, by the end of nearly all my scraps, my trio — with their clothing torn, bodies cut and scraped, faces bloodied — looked as if they had barely survived an all-out war. This element definitely added to the intensity of the battles and almost made me feel like I was enacting my own full-on anime slugfest, aided by the hectic pace and zooming around the screen in pursuit of your foe.

Playing with characters will also lead to leveling them up more and you’ll be able to improve on individual stats, such as their physical resistances and elemental types as the game develops, akin to the character progression system in Injustice 2. While it didn’t feature prominently in my gameplay, this will inevitably play a much bigger role with the create-a-character option.

It’s hard to tell how well the combat and gameplay will hold up overall in comparison to other competitive fighting games right now and, for all the fan service it offers, it feels closer to a Dragon Ball Xenoverse than a more serious fighter, like a Mortal Kombat or FighterZ, as obvious examples. At the time of previewing, only the offline versus mode was available and, after having recently released a trailer for Jump Force’s main story that Bandai Namco has kept so close to their chest, only time will tell if this will be deep enough to set it apart upon full release later this month.

The writer attended a press event for the purposes of this preview.