J-Stars Victory VS+

If you are a fan of Japanese manga series published in “Weekly Shōnen Jump”, like One Piece and Naruto, then J-Stars Victory VS+ might be fun for you to experience. For anyone else there are better fighting games available.

The game offers five different play modes to choose from. A very plain story mode for four selectable characters, a multi-player battle mode where players have to complete given objectives during battles, an arcade mode where it’s possible to change difficulty level and clear six battles (exclusive for PS4 version), a free battle and an online battle mode. The player can power up characters and buy more of them by using points earned from playing.

I was hopeful with the fight scenes and story mode’s plot and wanted to get to know the characters I didn’t recognize. I noticed that the battle system is not balanced enough. Some characters are easy to beat with certain characters and some aren’t really usable. Sometimes you survive using only two buttons. The battle system is sluggish because the player’s reaction doesn’t always match up with the result and the game also lags. In the story mode there isn’t much plot – everything and everyone are just thrown into a place called “Jump World” which combines elements from the chosen series. Characters have to fight against each other in a tournament and beat up the shadowy creatures. I chose the “Investigation Arc” where the three characters Toriko, Zebra and Goku talked about eating and getting stronger and that’s not enough to be called a story. The only element I liked was a special move for each character. Those moves are flashy to watch and often saved from a difficult situation.

Without any meaningful goal the player gets confused and bored and I really felt that way. It is sad because there could have been nice interaction and collaboration between different characters. Some of the characters have only supportive role and thus cannot be chosen as a playable character, which might be a big disappointment. The game is for killing time and seeing some characters to beat each other up but it gets boring after playing a couple of times. So it isn’t really worth of a lot of effort.

Platform: PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4 (tested)

Developer: Spike Chunsoft

Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.

Release Date (EU): June 26, 2015

PEGI rating: 12

Score: 5/10

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#single-player #fighting game #manga #anime #split-screen multiplayer #license game