Jump Force is a crossover fighting game published by Bandai Namco Entertainment which features characters from a variety of popular manga series published in Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump anthology. The game was made in celebration of Shonen Jump’s 50th anniversary.

Initial thoughts

As a fan of all things anime, I was very excited about this game when I heard the official announcement. As time went by, fans got to see more and more promotional clips from the game and a slight sense of dread came over. What was up with the animation?

Honestly, I prefer the graphics and animation style in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 which we’ll call NSUNS4 from now on. The reason is that the movement and effects made sense. In Jump Force, every character kicks up some sort of dust whenever they run regardless of the type of ground they’re running on. So when they’re running around in the Umbras Base hub – where the ground is some sort of metal – the dust that appears after each step makes no sense. It just looks like developers threw that in there as a feature to make it seem more ‘realistic’. Also, the animation when running around the Umbras Base looks slightly jerky and it’s something I can’t ignore – no matter how slight the jerk is.

My other issue is with how certain actions were animated. Let’s take Frieza in the introduction as an example. When he ‘flew away’, it just looked like he was being raised into the sky by an invisible elevator. I don’t want to sound picky, but I believe that in 2019, technology and game design skills have come to a point where invisible elevator flying should be a thing of the past.

As I just mentioned Frieza, a long-time antagonist in the Dragon Ball universe (created by Akira Toriyama), now is a good time to mention the playable characters in Jump Force and the manga they belong to. In addition to a few new characters that were created to serve the storyline, players can expect to see the following characters:

Bleach:Sōsuke Aizen, Ichigo Kurosaki, Renji Abarai, Rukia Kuchiki
Black Clover: Asta
City Hunter: Ryo
Dragon Ball Z: Goku, Cell, Frieza, Future Trunks, Piccolo, Vegeta
Fist of the North Star: Kenshiro
Hunter x Hunter: Gon Freecss, Hisoka Morroh, Killua Zoldyck, Kurapika
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: DIO, Jotaro
My Hero Academia: Izuku ‘Deku’ Midoriya
Naruto: Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Kakashi Hatake, Gaara, Boruto Uzumaki, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki
One Piece: Monkey D. Luffy, Zoro, Sanji Vinsmoke, Sabo, Marshall D. Teach aka Blackbeard, Boa Hancock
Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin Himura, Makoto Shishio
Saint Seiya: Dragon Shiryu, Pegasus Seiya
Yu-Gi-Oh: Yugi Muto
Yu Yu Hakusho: Toguro, Yusuke Urameshi

Note that these characters can be used when playing in offline and online battles and when doing missions.

60% cutscenes, 30% loading time and 10% actual gameplay

In my opinion, there were way too many cutscenes. I know it’s part of the story but it isn’t even that interesting. The amount of cut scenes makes me want to forget about playing the storyline completely and just do battles off- and online. Luckily, players are able to skip it by pressing the start button (on Dual Shock controllers for PlayStation). The only thing players can’t skip is the loading time. In the few days after Jump Force’s release, players had complained so much about the loading time that developers had to fix it as soon as possible.

The fighting is enjoyable

On a more positive note, the time where I am actually playing the game is fun, regardless of whether it’s an online/ offline battle or mission. The Battles kiosk can be found around the centre of the Umbras Base while Free Missions (not part of the story) and Key Missions (part of the story) can be found at the missions kiosk.

In terms of gamer personality, I’m a cross between hunter and adventurer. I enjoy exploring and going at my own pace as well as fighting others. Therefore, in regards to Jump Force – which we consider a game for the hunter types – the fighting was done well. Admittedly, I find it annoying that Naruto’s awakening and large-scale attacks like the Tailed Beast Rasenshuriken take up a significant amount of the screen, so I can’t even see what my opponent is doing. Other than that, it’s pretty fun to that grin off the face of that irritating baby ninja Boruto.

Overall thoughts on the game

The way the storyline and side missions are combined makes me feel like Bandai wasn’t sure what type of game they wanted. Is it a fighting game or story-driven RPG, who knows? What I do know is that it isn’t immediately clear whether you’re just doing stand-alone missions or if you’re following the story.

Concerning the game’s replay value, I don’t think I’ll follow the storyline again once I complete it. Once seems like enough. If I do decide to continue playing the game, it’ll just for the missions and online battle aspects because they’re entertaining. However, I expect any popularity to run dry eventually as its only value is the online battle aspect.