JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure lends itself to combat-heavy adaptations well, with a cast full of colorful fighters. Despite that, it’s difficult to find console JoJo games nowadays. The first JoJo game was a 1993 RPG for the Super Famicom, but fans are more likely to remember 1999’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future, a fighting game by Capcom. This title made it to America and was highly acclaimed, still seeing play through a PS3/Xbox 360 re-release and emulation. Capcom followed that up with a Japan-only beat ’em up adapting the popular Part 5: Golden Wind in 2002, and Anchor Inc. made a game based on Part 1: Phantom Blood in 2006.
Things went silent until 2012, which brought the HD re-release of Heritage for the Future and the still-running JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime. One year later, CyberConnect2 released its own JoJo fighter titled JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle. While its next JoJo game, Eyes of Heaven, would become an arena fighter like the company’s well-known Naruto games, All Star Battle was not. This PS3-exclusive was a fusion of Tekken and Street Fighter’s approach to fighting, and while its gameplay was not well-regarded, its art and animations were. Now, an upgraded version called JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R is coming to all systems, and its improvements might net more acclaim.
New JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Characters
One of the first things fans learned about JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R is that it's advertised as having 50 characters, up from the PS3 version’s 41. Fans initially assumed that this meant new characters added to Eyes of Heaven were being redesigned and backported to All Star Battle, but a leak from the Japanese website indicates this is not the case.
Trish Una, one of the protagonists of Part 5, was seen in the corner of a screenshot, and is returning from her introduction in Eyes of Heaven. A picture of what seems to be the arcade mode’s results screen also reveals Prosciutto, a minor villain from the first half of Part 5, among the listed names. While he played a small role, Prosciutto is quite popular in Japan, so it appears that any JoJo character is eligible for All Star Battle R. This is an exciting proposition, especially given how heavily weighted Eyes of Heaven’s roster was toward Part 3.
Content Being Added To All Star Battle R
Trish is not the only element being brought back from Eyes of Heaven, as a number of stages from that game are also being repurposed. If they follow the pattern of the original game’s stages, these should also contain special animations, stage hazards, and dramatic finishes that are faithful to the original manga. The fighting game's arcade mode returns for players seeking to test their skill, and among various difficulty options it offers an endless mode. Players regain health based on how much time they had left in the previous match, so optimizing combos and setups will carry people far.
A couple of other major additions are being made. CyberConnect2 is adding a tag system, giving players a number of charges to perform assists with a partner, as well as call them in for combo breakers. This is on-par with CyberConnect2's Naruto and Demon Slayer arena fighters, and will likely push All Star Battle’s combos past their flexible limits. A full-game rebalance has been implemented to compliment this, as well as a new air dash mechanic. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R might match Heritage for the Future in the amount of chaos that can occur during matches, which should draw a lot of interest.
All Star Battle R’s Many Improvements
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R will also come with a variety of other improvements, which should be warmly welcomed by old players. The game has more hitstop, as well as an improved input buffer for reading combos and common input shortcuts for performing special moves faster. Combined with what looks like locked 60 FPS performance, and it’s clear that an effort has been made to create a better-feeling experience. New voice lines are coming from the anime’s actors, and both the resolution and some old models have been touched-up to look modern and stay in-line with the anime. Before Dragon Ball FighterZ, All Star Battle was in the running for one of the best-looking licensed anime games, and it’s still able to compete.
One of the best changes to All Star Battle comes from something removed in R: the Campaign mode. This was originally the method for obtaining new taunts, win poses, and costumes, but it was designed like a free-to-play game with energy costs and microtransactions. Aside from a few DLC characters, the rest of the game was not like this, and it stuck out. In R, the old Story and Campaign modes have been fused into an All Star Battle mode, which offers both JoJo’s story and all the unlockables. That’s a great change, but Baoh: The Visitor's Ikuro Hashizawa may be missing out. This guest character from Araki’s old manga was a celebrated DLC addition to the original game, and he seems to be absent from R’s roster. Hopefully he can return to the cast, as it seems All Star Battle R is a strong fighting game in most other respects.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R will release in early fall 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
