Jump Ultimate Stars (JUS) is a dream come true for most anime fans. The game features 300 characters from 41 mangas. Though only around 40 or 50 are able to be used as fighters, they can offer quite a few different approaches. The other 250 or so make up help and support characters, more on this later.
Graphically the game looks pretty good, nothing spectacular, but the graphics works as the fights can be very fast paced and hectic. The characters look cool and their attacks look like they would in the show. The stages you fight on look nice, they are framed by the walls of a manga or comic panel. Where the game shines graphically is in the presentation. The first time you go to a world in mission mode (which will be explained later) you see a few panels from a manga. It looks like they took the scenes directly from the respective manga. Also when putting a battle character in a deck (which will also be explained shortly) the “cards” look quite nice. Very colorful, and many are quite cool.
Now onto the most important part of this type of game, the gameplay itself. JUS is a fighting game similar to the Super Smash Bros. As mentioned above fights can move quite fast and be frantic depending on your opponent. You have three buttons that attack. B is your weak attack button and it with a combination of up, left/ right, down, or no direction on the D-pad will vary the attacks. Y is for strong attacks and you can do different variations just like you can with B. X is used for strong attacks, each character has two, one for no direction/left/right on the D-pad and another for Up on the D-pad. Down on the D-pad causes you to block. L and R are used have to do with decks. There are a few other techniques that can be found in guides.
The single player mode needs to be played to unlock more fighters. It’s a lot like event mode from Super Smash Bros. Melee. You are given an objective, when you complete it you get the next one. There are 5 or 6 objectives per mission and the number of missions per level varies from 1 to 5 or 6. The objectives range from KO all opponents to break the walls before time runs out. If you complete multiple objectives at once it will count the game will show all the ones you complete. So you may complete all 6 at once.
Now when it comes to decks (this is what you fight with), you’re given an area of 20 spaces in which you have to put your characters. Each deck must contain at least 1 battle character, 1 support character, and 1 helper. The battle characters range from taking up 4 to 8 spaces, support 2 to 3, helpers all take up 1. If characters that like each other are next to each other they may give the other a bonus (usually they are from the same manga series). You’ll start out with one deck, which has two battle characters, a support character, and if I remember correctly 1 helper. When you make a new deck you must assign a leader as that battle character will be the first one out in battle. You can assign the R or L button to support or other battle characters. Fighters can be switched at almost anytime (with the press of R/ L or by pushing their picture in the touch screen). Supports can be called in at almost anytime in the same way. Some supports may attack your opponent, give them or you a status effect, or heal you or give you some SP (used to do special attacks) back. The controls are responsive.
As battle characters take up more spaces they generally become more powerful. For example Ichigo in his 4 koma form is basically just Ichigo from the beginning of the series, while his 8 Koma form is his Bankai form, which is much more powerful. But of course they come with the trade off of taking up more room in your deck.
The online play for the most part works very well. When playing with friends there is little to no lag in my experience. When playing with random people you occasionally get some, but JUS just pauses for a second until the connection is good again.
The game isn’t without problems. There is on a rare occasion slowdown during the main game. And the online mode can sometimes have some lag. Another thing that is a bit of a problem for most of us not in
Rumors are suggesting the game may get a PAL release, but nothing is for certain last I heard. Still though, the DS is region free, so if you are a big anime fan this game is for you. If you aren’t an anime fan, I don’t know whether you would like the game or not as some of the appeal is having characters from some of your favorite anime/ mangas fight. I’d recommend using a site like Play-Asia.com rather than Ebay.
Overall this game is a great pickup for most any anime fans.
9/10
Just a quick note the following is a list of animes that are in the
No comments:
Post a Comment