"And No, I've never been an Anime fan"

Jump Ultimate Stars

Anime and manga have made their way over to North America since the start of the twenty-first century. It did exist beforehand, but I bet you didn't see classmates walking around with volume 7 of Death Note. However, anime and manga have been around in Japan for a while, and since video game's have been coming more popular, the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump (Shonen Jump in America) decided to make a video game about all their characters: Jump Super Stars.

I heard about this game, and I thought: oh, hopefully it will come out in America. Well it didn't. :P So a year later, I was searching the internet, and found a sequel to a game I had long forgotten. That game was called Jump Ultimate Star's.

I have never been a manga fan, but a Super Smash Brother's like game on DS seemed like a dream at that time. I ordered it, and 14 day's later (stupid shipping :P) I rejoiced.

The story of the game (it does have a story mode) is in Japanese, but it has some cut scenes that anyone can understand. A black hole has sucked up Jump Land, and you need to save it from the bad guy that did it. While this game didn't need a story, it was nice they included it to give a reason for Naruto to fight Goku.

The game proves that Super Smash Brother's could work on the DS. The game is a basic Super Smash Brother's formula, but with anime and manga characters from Shonen Jump. You kick, punch, use swords, and do more to fight and destroy your opponent. There are two way's to do this: knock them off the stage, or deplete their health to zero. Special bars are always depleting because of the special attacks you are using, and you are about to die. The catch?

Koma.

Koma is Japanese for “panel”, which is what takes up the bottom screen. Koma's are kind of like decks for a card game. There are 20 panel spaces for each Koma you make. You fill up these 20 spaces with different koma's. In short, there are three types of panel's: Battle, support, and help. Battle koma's are character's you battle with. They can take up four to eight spaces in your deck. You can have as many as you want in a deck, but it leaves less room for other koma's. You can touch them using the touch screen to change to them. Support koma's are like the new assist characters for Brawl in a way. You touch them and they pop up in the battle to attack and fight for you. These are the base for all combos' you can create to deal massive damage. They can take up two to three spaces. And finally, Help koma's are one spaced characters that can add small little things to the battle character it is assigned to. You don't touch them at all to activate them; they are already in use the entire battle to give your character advantages like triple jump and air dashing. As you can see, while the koma system is complex and kind of confusing, once you play a couple of matches and design one for yourself, you will understand the concept. I'm sure with the 800 different Koma's you'll find something you like.

Koma's don't start out as battle characters though. They need to be evolved using gem's you get playing story mode and multiplayer. You spend them at the evolution menu option to unlock their battle characters and support. Not all characters have support and battle koma's, though. Nevertheless, it's still a great game.

The story mode is where you will unlock help characters to evolve them. All Shonen manga's have a planet. That planet has missions you need to beat. Some are simple (knock out all opponents) while some are wacky (hit everyone with Bo-Bo-Bo's Up+Y attack). However, because the game is in Japanese, it might be unclear what the mission objective is. You can usually guess, but a few times in the game you might have to resort to a guide. The AI is very disappointing for a game like this near the beginning. However, it does make up for it during the second galaxy. Eventually though, it won't be a challenge at all. There is also a single player mode that isn't story, kind of like VS. mode in SSBM without multiplayer.

Speaking of understanding the game, the menus, once you get used to them, are clear on what they are. The game is easy to understand for the most part, once you get used to it. There are many icons to represent option choices, so you are not blindly guessing what you are selecting. However, many good websites like GameFAQ's have great guides on all the menu's and missions.

One of the greatest features of the game is multiplayer. With one cartridge, you can host DS download and play with four people, with different Koma's each time. This however, is not anything compared to the Wi-fi play. There is normal search, and then a lobby where your friends can set up games with many different options such as team's, style (points or knockout) and much more. However, stepping up to Wi-fi from the AI in the game is a big one, as you will get your butt kicked a couple of times. Also, since the servers are in Japan, it can lag at times. It isn't a big deal though. You'd be surprised at how many Americans are on Wi-fi.

There are some other features in the game that are pretty neat, but I won't put too much detail in. There is a quiz mode once you beat story mode, which is useless for anyone that doesn't know Japanese (and that doesn't read manga :P). There is also a feature to trade decks using passwords, but this is seldom used in the JUS communities. The feature to see the cover's for the manga's is a cool idea for any fans.
The graphics are excellent. All of them are smooth, and there are no jerky movements. Some of the attacks look absolutely gorgeous. While the characters look the same no matter what manga they are from, they all hold a certain style that retains their classic art style and look. It gives each character an attitude that when you battle with them, you feel like you are them. One other tidbit I think is really unique is that all the character panels are real panels from the manga they are in. I didn't recently notice this until I went through some of them at Border's, and I think it makes the game somewhat more enjoyable, even if you are not a fan of the stuff.

Music to me is where all emotion lies in a game, and I think that the composers did a great job bringing out the tension in battles while still having the music retain a grand and glorious sound. All of the music is memorable, and it's really amazing what the DS can do. The sound effects capture all of the attacks and make them more. They might be a little simple, but they work for it.

The replay value of the game is pretty much infinite. Playing story mode and beating all the missions is really fun and will make you play again to unlock all of the characters. Once you do that, you will have to evolve them all. That's about 830 in total, and you will need to play a lot of matches to get enough gems' to unlock all supports and battles. This alone, combined with deck making, combo creating, and Wi-fi, can make it so you could play this game for…ever.

In conclusion, I believe this game is great enough to stand alone. You don't need to be a fan of anime, you could even hate it. I think that the fact that it has Shonen Jump characters in it makes it an even better game. You can't make fun of those anime lovers anymore, because you too, will become one of them, at least to a point.

I am now.

Final Score: 10/10

I rarely give scores like this. I think that you should import this game as soon as you can. Play Asia is the best place to order it. If you have any questions, well, you know where to reach me. :)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/16/07