Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

"As the title states, it's bizarre."

JoJo's Bizzare adventure is actually 2 games in 1, the original JoJo's Venture, and the sequel JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future. The only difference between the 2 is that Heritage contains more characters and updated graphics, and this is probably the game you'll be playing the most.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is based on one of Japan's (if the not the only) longest running manga. I've never read it, so I can't compare how the game stacks up to it. The story revolves around a man named Dio who is evil, and JoJo (not one but several people whos first or last name has Jo in the first syllable) who must stop him. Most, but not all characters, have stands, or physical manifestations of their inner psyche. Active stands act similar to the helpers in MvC, when called they come out and can perform their own moves, specials, and supers. Active stands are almost seperate characters, and accordingly they have their own independent life meter. When a stand's life meter is emptied, a Stand Crash occurs, which means that you cannot use your stand until the meter refills and leaves you temporarily stunned. Other characters stands are manifested in the form of weapons, and some characters have no stand at all. The stand system adds a great deal of both strategy and insanity to the game, and it is a fresh innovation after all the team battles, tag battles, and whatnot.

The graphics are quite good, not as detailed as those in SF III, but not as bad as SF Alpha 3. The characters have quite a bit of animation, and the stands are also animated quite well. The game looks like an interactive cartoon, thanks to Capcom's CPS-3 technology and the DC's horsepower. Both the characters and their stands each have their own unique look, for instance, a tiny dog with a giant robot dog as his stand, a Benimaru look alike with a knight as a stand and so on. The backgrounds are colorful, but seem empty, but this is most likely because the DC's power is being used to display 4 fully animated characters on screen at once instead of 2 characters with interactive backgrounds.

The gameplay is, as most if not all of Capcom's fighters, reminiscent of Street Fighter, so those of you who have played Street Fighter should have no problem pulling of special moves and super combos. The control scheme has been greatly simplified compared to Street Fighter though, with 3 attack buttons (light, medium, and hard), a taunt button, a quick roll button, and a stand button. It takes some time to get used to, but its minimal. The stand system is both good and bad, as it adds new elements to the gameplay, but newcomers may find it a little strange. The super moves are pretty much the same as Street Fighter's, you wait for your super meter to charge, then execute. What's new is the Tandem Attack system. Instead of perfomring a super with a set number of attacks (which you can do), you can now program a combo before it's executed. After activating the tandem attack, the moves that you input within a set number of seconds will be recorded, then carried out by your stand. In addition, your character can temporarily move super fast, to perform your own combos while your stand carries out the programmed moves. The highest combo possible is 99 hits, so those who complained of excessively large 200+ hit combos in MvC 2 shouldn't complain (or at least not as loudly). The A.I. is good, not excessively easy and not excessively cheap. There are the standard Story and Versus modes, plus Survival mode. New characters can be unlocked, but there aren't nearly as many as in MvC 2 or even Capcom vs SNK.

The only real problem with this game is its short replay value. After you beat story and survival modes, there isn't really anything left to do. 2 player battles are fun, but (in my experience) a lot of people don't want to play because of the uniqueness of the fighting engine. It's really too bad, because it's a whole lot of fun.

So in the end, if you're tired of countless Street Fighters and Vs games, this game is your savior. It's a truly unique fighting game (as unique as fighting games can get), but this is its greatest quality and its Achilles Heel. If you're looking for something new, check it out, but beware, not everyone will enjoy it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/22/01, Updated 05/22/01