PaigeFTW: J-Stars Victory VS+: An Anime Lover’s Dream

J-Stars Victory VS+ is the kind of game that, even two years ago, would never have made it from Japan to the West. I almost didn’t buy it because I was just that sure it wasn’t being released here.

After all, a fighting game featuring characters from Japan’s world-famous Weekly Shounen Jump magazine — including titles like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece and many other, less-known-in-America works — is something that is both incredibly popular and niche, simultaneously.

The appeal of J-Stars is dependent on how long you’ve loved anime and manga. When I was in middle school, I loved ‘90s series like Yu Yu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin, so I was downright giddy to see Yusuke and Kenshin again, holding their own against a younger generation of heroes. I was equally delighted to see characters like Gintoki (Gintama) and Tsuna (REBORN!), who both hail from series that never really took off in America.

My mind spun once more with questions of who would really win in an all-out brawl (a topic the youthful Paige would ponder extensively during class), and I suddenly craved a new anime to really sink my teeth into — all in just a two-hour play session.

The downside here is that, unfortunately, J-Stars isn’t that great a game. Though its battle system takes clear inspiration from Dissidia: Final Fantasy and the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games, all the vivid characters play the same way, with small, mostly cosmetic differences. The graphics are nothing to write home about. The storyline is shallow.

Even compared to its predecessors — the Japan-only Nintendo DS games Jump Super Stars and Jump Ultimate Stars, both of which I scrounged from Shirokiya’s used import shelves — the game is limited in scope, with comparatively few characters and series featured from the hefty Jump library.

On the other hand: Son Goku vs. Monkey D. Luffy, the 3D showdown.

Yeah, it’s totally still worth buying.

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