What is your justice? My Hero One’s Justice 2 review

For fans, a game based of their favourite anime or manga property would probably be one of their top most wanted things. This time, we review the game adaptation of one of these hottest properties, My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia, with developers ByKings and publisher Bandai Namco, in MY HERO ONE’S JUSTICE 2. The game is available for PS4, PC Steam, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch since 13 March 2020.

Your favourite characters return in this 3D arena fighter to see whose “justice” reigns supreme. A whopping forty characters are playable, from Deku, to All Might, Shigaraki and more. Besides this variety of characters, it also has several single-player modes you can try, including the story mode, arcade mode and mission mode, bringing with them their unique spins on solo play. Let’s get right into the game, shall we?

Diving into Story mode

My Hero One’s Justice 2 tries out some new things with the property and the game’s design, and is surely something fans and non-fans alike can appreciate. Story mode revisits the previous season of the MHA anime, with you playing the battles! You can be either the Heroes or the Villains, and experience the story from different perspectives. You get to see the supporting cast doing their thing while the more flashy main battle goes on, and adds to the overall story that long-time fans can enjoy. The story is not told in a strict chronological order, to better tell these different viewpoints.

A different style with Mission and Arcade Modes

The Mission Mode is more focused to RPG conventions. In the beginning, you’d only have the “Deku Shoot-Style”, but your selections can be widened with the use of Hero Coins. The more you play a specific character, the stronger they will get. You can use another character at any point, but if you want to see your fave crush your enemies like the puny things they are, then it’s worth investing into them as early and as much as possible. You can add more characters to your team and upgrade them accordingly, and utilize them in territory acquisition battles!

Arcade Mode is pretty much what you might expect from a typical fighting game: make your way through a series of battles, and fight the boss at the end of it. With 40 heroes you can choose from, each character will have their own gauntlet to go through, and of course, be able to have unique banter with their opponents!

Style your hero!

Unlike the 100% wacky original character you could create in One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, you customize an existing hero in My Hero One’s Justice 2 as your base. There’s an almost ridiculously large range of accessories that you can choose from, with hats, pads for hands and knees, and even a variety of special gear that can give things like “fire resist” for a stronger playable character.

You can change the character voice, and even their motto. Colours and effects are likewise customizable. Once you’re done, you can save your favourite loadout.

Robust gameplay and technique!

Each character comes with their Normal, Counter (turns the character yellow) and Unblockable (character turns red) attacks. Players would probably be using plenty more Normals to start with, with the flashier and harder hitting attacks asking for combinations of counters and unblockables, depending on the chosen hero.

Of course, you can work to protect yourselves from the attacks with blocks, but you’re not going to win that way. If there’s a long start-up animation especially during counters or unblockables, be sure to take that chance to punish the opponent! Attacks in this game can eat a third of that HP bar, so if you’re not careful, that round is going to end real quick.

Considering that huge variety of Quirks and characters, it’s not going to be boring when you dive into a battle! Each of them has their moves reflect their powers from the anime. So, you’ll be seeing Todoroki be able to burn or freeze, Ochako making various elements of the arena be weightless, and so much more. Experiment around and see what you can do with these Quirks!

The controls have quite a few interesting configurations that you can test with, like how you want to unleash those special moves, as well as adjust the level of input precision required. Even auto-combos can be turned on or off, so that players can more accurately gauge the power of their hits, or for practicing those high combo counts! You can bring in your side kicks and really chain up that combos, so be sure to take your time to practice with this large cast of colourful characters.

Truly the anime brought to life

As one would hope, the inspirations and concepts within the anime/manga series comes alive in My Hero One’s Justice 2. The bold text and style of comics is shown off in this title, for one. Watch as your chosen arena starts breaking down as the fight gets fiercer, to up that tension. Finish it off with your PLUS UTRA and blow it all to kingdom come, with appropriate effect, of course!

The characters themselves also are colour coded accordingly to buffs they may possess; if they’re invulnerable, armoured and more, and when you get to chain that combo, the effects add to that weight behind every  blow you manage to land. It’s something that you need to experience for your own!

Network mode options

Play both locally or online multiplayer, as you might expect. You can queue for ranked or unranked matches with players online, so the competitive can go straight for their ladder points in ranked. Casual players can opt to try out the CPU in Unranked first. Custom rooms can be created, so there’s this option if you want to invite some friends online for a bit of a rumble.

Verdict

If you’re a fighting game fan, then you can’t really go wrong with My Hero One’s Justice 2. For all the graphics, effects and mechanics thrown in, there’s plenty of variety to appeal to a whole range of players. If you’re in for the Story Mode, however, it might need some improvements and a bit of expansion to be worth it, but over all, this title will surely be satisfying to both fans, and non-fans alike!