J-Stars Victory VS+ | PS4

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There are a few things you kind of expect when you play a anime based game from Bandai Namco – bizarre humour and breasts. J-Stars gives you both.

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by Emily Munro

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​@pootplaysgames

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Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Players: 1+

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The latest offering from the publisher behind Dark Souls is an anime lover's dream – just the opening credits are enough to illicit a few squeals from even the most average of fans. Pitting characters from your favourite series against each other in  real-time battles, it takes on a sort of RPG/fighter hybrid; which sounds like it shouldn't really work – yet it does. In some ways, at least.

J-Stars gives you various options for play, which is welcome, because fighters can get a bit repetitive after a while. The first (and really the 'main') option is 'J-Adventure', a mode where you embark on a story-based adventure with one of several set characters - Luffy, Naruto, Toriko or Ichigo (for the purposes of this review, I played through the story of One Piece's Luffy). It gives you a small amount of background into why you are where you are, and what the aim of the story actually is, and then lets you loose on a world map of sorts. It's not open-world, really, but it's enough to give the player a sense of exploration, and this is a welcome change of pace from most games aimed at the fighter genre, breaking up the action with narrative and exploration.

A short tutorial introduces you to the fighting style of J-Stars. It's not a typical fighter in the sense that you engage in real time battles during which you interact with the scenery and items around you,

and move freely around the map. Your characters can jump on buildings, and smash scenery to pieces with punches. Or by throwing your opponent into them, which is always fun. Interestingly, battles aren't one-on-one all the time, either – you control one character, and the CPU can control a couple of support characters to aid you.

Fighting various other characters can encourage them to join your fighting roster, enhancing your team and your choices for battle, whereas some just seem to want to fight you for the hell of it. The system itself isn't as convoluted as a lot of fighters – there's no six button-press combos to remember or anything here, it's all quite basic, and easy enough to get to grips with (although I did find the J-Adventure mode considerably easier than the others). However, this is a double-edged sword, because after a while the fighting can get a bit samey and repetitive with limited numbers of moves to pull off.

Other modes included are 'Victory Road' – a mode where you create a team from the list of available characters and fight groups of set opponents. Arcade mode, which is of course a standard six battle long game in which you just fight to get as far as you can. Free Battle, where you can custom create matches by selecting what characters will take part and the stage that will be used; and of course an online mode (which I didn't get chance to try out, playing pre-release).

Also on the Main Menu is the shop, where you can use J-Points earned in battle to purchase new characters (both main and support), items for use in Adventure mode, and Cards to enhance your deck, which can power up your team. This seems a nice feature, though not overly well explained to begin with, so can be difficult to get one's head around.

Graphically, J-Stars isn't going to win any awards. It does a good job of representing the art styles of anime and the character designs are decent, though, and it's brightly coloured visuals are pleasant to look at. The narrative is subbed with small excerpts in Japanese, which ties in nicely with the anime theme and sounds better than English dubbed voices.

Generally speaking, J-Stars is a game that can be fun to play (though I imagine it would, as with most fighters, be more fun to play with friends) but it just feels a little lacking in terms of longevity. You don't need to be a hardcore fan of either anime or the fighting genre to play it, which is of course, a great thing; and if all else fails, there's a whole lotta cleavage for you to look at.

Pros

• Easily accessible regardless of experience with fighters
• Several modes to mix it up a bit
• A decent range of characters

Cons

• Gameplay gets repetitive quite quickly
• Tutorials need to be a little more in-depth
• Doesn't feel like there's much longevity

Score – 7/10

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