Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

"Ora, ora, ora, ora, ora, ora, ora! That's a good thing."

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

Perhaps I’m not the most unbiased source to get your information from as it pertains to this title: I’m wearing a Jojo T-Shirt I bought at an anime expo as I write this. Bear with me in that my judgment might be clouded, because I really love this game and the anime that spawned it. There’s no law that says a scathing critic can’t be a fanboy.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is based upon Hirohiko Araki’s manga series, or rather a story-arc of it that follows one Jotaro Kujo, the grandson of former series’ star Joseph Joestar. The Joestar bloodline is a weird one in that the descendents develop psychic personas with which they attack others, all based on tarot cards—like The Hanged Man, for instance. The other thing they inherit is two ''jo'' syllables somewhere in their name, so Jojo’s adventure just refers to any of them, incidentally. At any rate, Jotaro develops one of these psychic-buddies: a stand, as they’re called, which is fortunate because the arch-enemy of the Joestar lineage has awoken. His name is Dio, and he’s a vampire. The game’s excellent super-story mode will tell you everything I just did and chronicles Jotaro and his comrades’ journey from Japan to Cairo, where Dio waits for them with evil and all that. SNK fans will be overjoyed by the fact that the story happens to be included (!!!) in the game—something we’re very unfamiliar with given the KOF series.

Primarily, Jojo is a fighting game: an excellent fighting game at that. Characters fight very similar to other Capcom games in that they have an array of punches and kicks, rolling button-press special moves, and a finite super move that needs to be charged up through fighting in order to unleash a stronger attack than normal—basic stuff, people.

The nifty difference is in the controls: attacks are weak, medium, and heavy. Button X is reserved for your stand, which can be called out at the push of a button. Stands attack faster and more painfully, but they can also be ''crushed'' from blocking too many attacks, whereby they’re KO’ed for a limited amount of time, leaving you absolutely defenseless. Also, stands lack the ability to dash King of Fighters style; this move is open to you only when you’re unfettered by your ethereal specter.

The gameplay relies chiefly upon your most typical Street Fighter Alpha / Darkstalkers conventions, though careful attentiveness to when you should turn your stand on and off gives you an excellent tactical edge. This alone is excellent, as the special moves and characters are entirely unique. You won’t find anything close to a shoto-clone here, evidenced by when one character, a Boston terrier, summons a beast made of sand to hurl at the enemy. To counter, the opponent could very well slice the entire screen in half, or perhaps stop time itself to wail on the dog as he’s stuck in limbo—these aren’t even the most far-fetched attacks in the game. The moves are incredibly faithful to the story, and give the game Araki’s signature touch.

The real beauty is within the Super Story Mode, which is even more faithful to the story. To sum up both the manga and anime as quickly as possible, it’s characterized by strikingly intelligent fights and brilliant dialog. Frankly, this mode is an experience. Your characters are limited to only the good guys (of which there are six; any other playable character is one of Dio’s assassins), and selected based on the narrative. Amazingly, the story follows the manga religiously, and extra points are awarded if you end fights in the same way they occurred in the original story. Talk about faithfulness. Points earned in story mode unlock bad guys for use in the arcade and two-player modes, and by the end of it all you will have truckloads of playable characters.

But Super Story mode doesn’t end with the fighting, no! There are several mini-games to advance the story. There are simple interactive story sequences, where you must push a button spur-of-the-moment like Shenmue’s quicktime events, and there are also several unique minigames with their own sets of rules. Every one of them is delightful and engrossing, and they keep shoving the story forward while providing entertainment. Most importantly, you’ll be paying attention to the story more than playing the game.

As a DC game, JBA was somewhat unpolished as a CPS2 port (think Street Fighter Alpha quality). Due to the translation to the PSX, certain setbacks had to be made, and I envisioned that the version would be very inferior. Shockingly, the jump backwards in generations is not that great. An average looking 2d title (comparatively) on the DC, JBA becomes a beautiful game on the PSX: perhaps one of the best on the system, if not THE best. I own both versions, and the frame and color loss on the PSX is mind-bogglingly minute. Unlike the DC, you get the Super Story mode, which for me was absolutely worth the second purchase.

Characters have superb design (although they will take some time to grow on you, as the game lives up to its bizarre title easily), and each has their own personality and animation to set them apart from the others. Super attacks are just plain awesome looking, and the fights are a joy to see. At the risk of using a phrase sealed by some of us reviewers, it’s EYE CANDY. Anime-faithful voice samples and outstanding sound effects add dimensions to the game and, for what it’s worth, the music was great.

There is no doubt in my mind that Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is the best 2d fighter on the PlayStation, period. If you can track this down at all, no matter if you have to kill a hobo and wear his urine-stained jacket into the nearest ''Hobos-Only Video Game Store,'' where the game is horrendously overpriced, covered in X-acto knives, and suspended over a vat of boric acid—do it. You won’t regret it: pound for pound, this game has the best gameplay, graphics, and story of any of its PSX competitors.

So if I haven’t convinced you of how totally radical to the max this game is, I have failed miserably. If you’re not going to look for this, or if you’re going to utter something to the effect of, ''I don’t like hobo urine,'' I don’t want to hear it. As Jotaro often says, ''I will punch you hundreds of times!'' This could be the game to catapult you to my level of fanboyism.

10 / 10
Oh, yeah, it’s that good.

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*My DC review describes the gameplay better, if you’re interested.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/02, Updated 10/14/02