For many, the announcement that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle would return via its R re-release was a big one: the iconic manga series is seeing lots of international appeal, so it’s definitely a good time to bring back the crossover fighting game.

If you’ve somehow escaped the 2010s without hearing about JoJo, it’s pretty simple- imagine every anime trope people use to make fun of anime- pointlessly complicated outsmartening of someone else’s outsmarting, impractical outfits and excessively cool names. Here’s the anime that those tropes probably came from.

As the rapidly fluctuating quality of licensed anime games shows though, a solid IP doesn’t always translate to a solid game- there’s lots of pitfalls, usually in an attempt to get things looking like its source material, that games can fall into.

How does Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle R fair? Read on and find out.

It’s The Jojo-iest JoJo Has Ever Been

As a JoJo fan, any kind of game trying to adapt the series is inherently risky. It’s basically on the same level of Berserk- fans are very tuned to what makes something feel like JoJo, and even the slightest thing that’s off might cause more problems in the feeling of the game. JoJo is a series incredibly loud in its inspirations- everyone knows what you mean when you hear the words JoJo Pose.

To that end, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle R succeeds immensely. Every action used by the game’s massive roster of characters feels bold and characterful- exactly what you’d want out of a JoJo game. Poses are dynamic and cool, much like Araki’s own drawings.

Admittedly they aren’t as smooth in motion as I might have liked- that’s just the downside of them using 3d models instead of 2d sprites. But the game’s sense of presentation is just so strong, you can’t help but be charmed by characters like Dio or Gappy (Josuke from part 8) as they basically just constantly emit personality in their animations.

It’s not just visually, either- many of the characters movesets are designed with their personality in mind. Many licensed titles tend to fall apart here-  sometimes it’s more about recreating something visually from the source material, but feel absolutely rubbish to actually execute. This isn’t really the case with All Star Battle R, which has some interesting uses for the characters many quirks.

A great example would be the character Guido Mista: in JoJo Part 5, he’s a gunman with a superstitious fear of the number 4, so much so that his stand, Sex Pistols, is a group of little men with numbered heads but the 4th one is missing. Just like in the anime he has to manage his bullets, and letting him have only 4 shots left will put him into a state where he loses meter- so you want to either take an extra shot or reload to flee from the number 4.

Considering how much of JoJo as a series is driven by these kinds of quirky details about characters, it’s great to see a game that acknowledges them in such a way too. It’s the difference between a game that feels like its trying to honor its base series, rather than one that’s just riding the coattails of a popular IP.

It takes it a step further with the titular All Star Battle Mode, too- rather than just being canon battles, All Star Battle throws in a huge pile of what-ifs: What if Avdol fought Ghiacco? They have no reason to other than having fire and ice powers, after all. But the game has fun with these, even granting unique dialogue for each of the matchups.

Battle Tendency

While I never got to play the original All Star Battle, I’m told that R features quite a bit of gameplay improvements. Combat definitely feels snappy- the game’s 3 main attack buttons have their own gatlings, making going from Light-medium-Heavy feel quite good to do.

That being said, it’s not a totally hyper game- air mobility is quite restricted, and jumping itself is a pretty huge commitment since you can’t block in the air. Worse still, jump recovery feels a tad bit longer than most anime fighters- so moves you’d want to avoid by jumping will fall entirely on your ability to guess the timing correctly the first time.

This kind of precision shows up in the game in more ways, too- different attacks seem to incur different wake up timings, so at a higher level of play you’ll probably find yourself needing to practice different types of setups once you knock your opponent down.

What this creates is a game that’s quite strict about the decisions you’ll have to make- you don’t get much room to correct your mistakes outside of your opponent possibly dropping their combo or breaking away using one of the game’s assists.

I’m a really big fan of the game’s Style mechanic- Style is basically like a simplified version of Drive from Blazblue, where what it does changes from character to character, based on their fighting style. Hamon characters, for example, can charge their Hamon, building meter. Stand users change stances- meaning they’ve essentially got two sets of moves to choose from, all dependent on which stance they’re currently in.

It’s really clever because rather than make every character into an all-rounder, it makes their weaknesses more obvious- Gappy’s Stand ON mode technically does give him more close range options, but most of them will end with keeping him away, perfect for his more defensive kit. Worse still, he doesn’t have a reversal in either stance, so he’s still weak to pressure since he can’t reliably force his way out like some other characters might.

Not A Great Tutorial

Unfortunately, one of the game’s biggest weaknesses lies in its onboarding. The game’s tutorial is a mandatory 4 page text document that doesn’t really cover anything in depth. I literally had to be taught about more advanced techniques like Stand Canceling and Stand Rushes, since the game makes literally no mention of them despite being integral to increasing the offensive power of any Stand-type character.

Even the mechanics the game does mention, like Flash Canceling- a lot of that is dependent on your experience with other games with a Roman Cancel-equivalent. To the entirely new player, you’re probably wondering why you just spent a bar to strike a pose.

Add that to the game’s pretty abysmal movelist- attacks are named after quotes from the manga, and they don’t really have any way to tell you what each move does. It’s just overly frustrating if you want to climb from the “pressing buttons and having fun” pond to the “letting your soul be tainted by fighting games” one.

Admittedly, this was pretty much par for the course back when the original All Star Battle released. But fighting games have advanced so much in this field that it’s a shame that CyberConnect2 didn’t think to update the game’s tutorials. It’s not just menus either- the game still sports delay-based netcode, which means any kind of online play is going to be a challenge since you can’t have good conditions for any of the higher-skill gameplay.

Closing Thoughts

Look, JoJo is great. It’s an 8-part of anthology that absolutely oozes style every chance it gets, and is indirectly responsible for multiple other popular anime series. All Star Battle R is a great extension of that- it celebrates the manga as a whole by even featuring characters from Steel Ball Run and JoJolion.

A lot of the game’s flaws instead come not so much from being a bad fighting game, but moreso from not doing the homework necessary to re-release a title in 2022. While netcode might not directly drive sales at launch (the game has done well enough for itself on that front), it would have gone a long way in getting the game a long-lasting scene, since more people will want to play a game that gets consistent matches. Likewise with the tutorial, players should absolutely have easier access to tools to jump up a skill level.

That being said, the game also has its points to be commended. Rather than piggyback off the anime, the game’s soundtrack is actually amazing- just like its manga-style presentation and overall visuals. Add that to the actually fun combat and, well, you’ve got a game that absolutely deserves a spot at your next locals.

All Star Battle R

Game reviewed on PC running the PS4 version. Review codes provided by Bandai Namco Entertainment SEA.