Is this a video game? Or a love letter to the wonderfully weird world of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure? I’d say more the latter than the former. For JoJo's fans, this game will hit all the sweet spots and then some. For non-JoJo’s fans, this might help explain why so many people love this series. 

Being a JoJo's fan and a guy who reviews anime games on a regular basis, I like to think I have a pretty good grip on what makes a good anime game. All you really need is a set of decent game mechanics and a lot of fan service. And this game has said decent mechanics but takes fan service to a whole new level. It goes way beyond just having beloved characters show up and say cool things—it’s baked into every aspect of the game.

Even things like menu screens are crammed full of little details hardcore JoJo’s fans will respond to. One menu screen has Caesar’s scarf flowing around it as a design element, as well as several other symbols, fans will immediately recognize. If you don’t know what’s going on in JoJo’s, you’d just think it’s beautiful. If you do know the story—it’s a testament to the developer's deep understanding of the world. 

As for the story, it’s the usual kind of crazy crossover tale where a bunch of characters from different timelines meet each other and are baffled or bemused. But since it’s JoJo’s and many are related, there’s a bit more inside humor in the jokes and reactions to each other. However, there are spoilers if you haven’t read it all. I have not, so some of the jokes were lost on me, and I know some things that were probably meant to be surprises. Specifically, regarding a turtle...

When it comes to combat, the game provides all the action the series is known for and does a decent job of translating some of the harder Stand powers into gameplay. For example, when Jotaru does his Star Platinum stand, everyone freezes for a few seconds while he can run free. But the game balances this overpowered ability by extending the timer so he can only do it a few times per match. Other characters with weaker abilities can use theirs far more often.

The combat is very straightforward and fans of J-Stars will find themselves right at home. But as you get deeper into the story mode, you’ll be able to unlock more moves and stat boosts for the characters with an ability tree. The ability tree is a little overwhelming at first, but most of the matches are pretty easy so you won’t have to spend hours fretting over what to pick. And you get to add abilities all the time so your characters will become more powerful pretty quick. But! The system for picking character new abilities, or Jojolities, is kinda clunky and could have been more streamlined. I spent a lot more time in menus in this game than I expected.

One of the best features of the combat is the dual attacks. If you’re kicking a lot of butt with your partner, you can pull off a tag-team attack that not only does a ton of damage but looks hilarious too. The game goes into a cutscene with both characters yelling, posing and attacking the bad guy in tandem. Jotaro and his daughter Jolyne’s combo attack shows them both attacking and saying the same thing at the same time, which is a lot of fun to see on the screen. Many of other dual attacks have little nods to the characters relationships as well. 

Most of the game is regular two-on-two fights, but not all. Occasionally, you’ll have to chase things, fight endless waves of enemies or in one level, ride around on horses and shoot dinosaurs. It makes sense in the JoJo’s world. My favorite non-fighting level was playing cards with Darby! It was a hilarious mini-game where you had to defeat him at cards, stop him from cheating or cheat him! To cheat or stop him from cheating, you have to do a quick-time event correctly, which is pretty easy, but still, it was a nice break from fighting. In all honesty, I wish the game had way more fun mini-games like this. Even though it was simple, it was thoroughly entertaining.

As for extras, the game overfloweth!!! I mean this game has an absolute bonkers amount of extra stuff. Including a very thorough JoJo’s encyclopedia so you can bone up on the hundreds of characters and their powers from this long-running manga series. And by long-running, I mean nearly 30 years and still counting!

Another neat extra is you can get additional poses, colors, sound effects and phrases for your characters by fighting through the story mode. And you can fiddle around with some of it like making the sound effects bigger or smaller or at a specific angle. The amount of customization is impressive.

And aside from all this, the game also features a versus mode with 50 playable characters!!! That's an incredible amount of characters for any fighting game, so when you're done with the story, you'll still have lots to do. 

What else can I say—this is THE game for the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure enthusiast. There’s so much love for the series stuffed into this game it’s practically bursting at the seams with ORA ORAs! Whatever flaws it may have as a fighting game can be easily overlooked thanks to the insane amount of content and attention to detail. Now this is fan service!

Hint: Don't forget to assign new skills (JoJolities) to your characters between levels! And if you feel overwhelmed by the skill tree, hit the square button to see what skills the game recommends. 

by Urian Brown