"A truly "bizarre" fighter worth playing"

I'm not going to go into what Jojo's is all about; there's a good amount of FAQs that explain it.

Most people who pick up this game put it back down almost immediately; another fighter in the pile of games. However, this game has much more depth than most people realize.

One of the first CPS-3 games, this upgrade to the original Jojo's Venture, this upgrade, in the U.S. called ''Jojo's Bizarre Adventure'' adds plenty more characters, new modes, and more character tweaks (Shadow Dio is now a playable character, and nowhere near as cheap as the home version).

Since it's based off the very popular anime and manga series in Japan, most of the jokes in the game will probably go unexplained to the American gamer; thus one reason it never really took off in America.

If you can really sit down with this however, and figure out the mechanics, it's truly fun and entertaining at the same time. It's not as hard as it seems.

Graphics: 7/10
Being CPS-3, I would have expected more high-res characters, but you can definitely see pixelation. Typical of Capcom. The characters also don't move as smoothly as Street Fighter 3. But some of their animations and the way the characters move are very nice.

Sound: 8/10
A lot of the *oomph* from a typical Capcom fighter. There are parts where you really feel it (for example, falling into Maraiah's super, and you're getting chomped up by humongous teeth, or the loud piercing sounds of Vanilla Ice teleporting all around you). The music is synthesized, and isn't bad either.

Presentation: 9/10
As bizarre as it may seem, some of the supers are absolutely spectacular and fun to do and watch. The time stop super not only looks cool, it's fun to watch whoever you're playing against get taken by surprise, and say ''what the heck was that???'' afterwards.

It's also not everyday that you see a super where you get a bulldozer dropped on your head, get cars thrown at you from the ground, or splitting the screen in half. It's almost like an SNK fighter and Darkstalkers mixed, with a touch more bizarre-ness.

There's also two ways you can play this game: Challenge Mode and Story Mode. Story Mode is your typical fighter, however, depending on who you're using, you may have to do ''side quests.'' This includes for the main six characters (Jotaro, Joseph, Abdul, Polnareff, Kakyoin, Iggy), may have to do extra battles or quests, such as going through a desert obstacle course, or fighting a CPU-only character ''Death 13.''

Challenge Mode is a slightly atypical survival mode. It has the same basics of survival mode, but in each battle, you earn a certain amount of points. At the end of each round, you use those points to regain health or add a super meter stock.

Gameplay: 8/10
The stand system works completely different for each character, so it's not like you can pick up someone right away. This forces you to have a very different strategy with each character. Each one has it's ups and downs.

Replay: 6/10
There's really not much to replay here unfortunately. It has about as much replay as any other Capcom fighting game. You can go back and play through the other characters, or try to learn new stuff, but that's just about it.

Overall:
This game has unrealized potential. Unfortunately, this game came out too early, and in the midst of other fighting games overshadowing it, like Marvel VS Capcom 2, Guilty Gear X, Tekken Tag Tournament, Soul Calibur, etc. It also doesn't help that it came out way before anyone has ever heard of the anime/manga in America. Even now, unless a company picks it up, Jojo's will remain in obscurity forever.

It doesn't rank as high as some of the other fighters, but for what it's worth, it's still good. If you have a Dreamcast or a PlayStation, be sure to check this out.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/03, Updated 04/09/03