Chunsoft was the studio behind the original Dragon Quest back in 1986
Jump Force
YOU’VE GOT TO ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES TO GET TO WHAT’S REAL MARTIN KITTS
PUBLISHER BANDAI NAMCO / DEVELOPER SPIKE CHUNSOFT / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW / COST £50/$59.99
developer, but Jump Force has a
particularly special buzz about it.
It’s an online-focused one-on-one
fighting game, with the twist being
that each player picks three of the 42
characters, swapping between them
at critical points to make best use of
their abilities. All three share a single
health bar, which gives the game a
different sort of dynamic to a typical
tag-team fighter – by the time you
realise your first choice is just a bad
matchup for this opponent, half of
your team’s collective health could
have been wiped out.
A couple of basic attacks are
available for chipping away at your
opponent, but the serious damage
is done with special moves that
become available as a second energy
meter slowly charges. There are three
lesser specials that you can break
out almost as often as you like, but
once the gauge is half-full you can
launch a signature move so epic that
it comes with its own cutscene. AtPart of the 50th
anniversary
celebrations of
Shonen Jump, a
weekly manga comic
so widely read in
Japan (7.5 billion copies and counting)
that it has inevitably achieved a
measure of fame far beyond its
homeland, this is truly an all-star
fighting game. Anyone with even a
passing interest in the genre will be
familiar with many of the characters
here, because these are some of the
most illustrious names in manga.
There are 16 different series
represented at launch, including the
biggest-selling manga of all time, One
Piece, the second biggest, Dragon
Ball, and several other titles from the
top 20 list, namely Naruto, Bleach, Fist
Of The North Star and JoJo’s Bizarre
Adventure. They’ve all been in plenty
of videogame adaptations over the
years, including the somewhat similar
J-Stars Victory Vs, from the same
full charge you can do the same thing
in ‘awakened’ form, which basically
means there’s no escape.
It’s also possible to spend some
energy on awakening a character,
temporarily bestowing enhanced
skills and potentially granting a
transformation to some other form,
depending on the character in
question. These powers can persist
between rounds, and as the match
progresses you’ll see fighters
effectively levelling up while their
clothes become shredded from
damage. At the end of it all, they really
look like they’ve been in the wars.Cut to the chase
Because a solid combo can fling a
fighter halfway across the arena,
there’s a chase button for closing the
gap. It makes you lock on and dash
towards your opponent’s location,
at which point you’ll either launch
into another set of moves or receive
a well-timed counter from your foe.short
cutWHAT IS IT?
Frenetic 3D
fighting game with
extravagant
special moves.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
Manga action scenes
brought to
eye-popping life.
WHO’S IT FOR?
Anyone looking for
something a bit
different for Friday
games nights.070 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
REVIEW