It’s Shounen Jump’s 50th birthday and Bandai Namco is celebrating in a big way with the anime/manga crossover game Jump Force. Jam packed with Jump characters across several generations they come to our world to either defend or destroy us in an all out war.

Jump Force is a 2019 fighting game, it is developed by Spike Chunsoft & published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.

Editor’s Note: A review copy of Jump Force was provided by Bandai Namco in support of this review. Spoilers for Jump Force’s story may be present within this review. 

Shounen Jump characters throughout the ages face off in Jump Force.

After it’s initial unveiling Jump fans were impressed by Jump Force with it’s ever growing generational roster of Shounen Jump manga characters beloved throughout the ages. From One Piece to Dragon Ball to even the more obscure brands like City Hunter there’s a character for everyone in Jump Force.

Jump Force’s beautiful graphics thanks to the Unreal Engine 4 brings a number of long-dormant manga characters to new light.

THE GOOD: Jump Force’s insane roster size & variety of characters is likely to have at least one character from a franchise players grew up with, after all it is the 50th birthday of Shounen Jump after all right? You play as a created character who after witnessing a battle between Goku and Frieza in the real world ends up getting injured in all of the commotion. Sometime after you’re approached by Trunks whose apart of a secret unit known as the Jump Force (heh). The Jump Force is made up of three groups led by Goku, Luffy, and Naruto who have their own high level companions to aide in combat against the evil forces invading the real world. Led by Director Glover he along with the aide of the aforementioned look for a device known as the umbras cube which gives regular citizens potential to be heroes like the Shounen Jump characters. Umbras cubes are also used to turn evil humans into Venoms.

The character creator has some solid options for variety available.

Gameplay is simplistic enough with punch and kick combos in addition to special moves being performed with the R1 button and either square, circle, triangle, and x. There’s also rush attacks to gain distance or close in on your opponents.

While the idea of Goku, Luffy, and Naruto working together sounds fantastic, the writing isn’t really there to support it.

THE BAD: If you’re expecting Jump Force to be competitive you might want to take a step back. Not to say there’s not any intense moments when playing with friends or online, but most of Jump Force’s gameplay feels very luck based rather than skill based. The story is ok, but often feels like a typical anime video game story which doesn’t follow any canon for the source or sources being covered. Loading screens are an absolute pain in the ass and ultimately gets in the way of your experience.

Jump Force has potential to be a very deep fighter, it’s unfortunately just not met in its first efforts.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Jump Force is a great idea it just has small inconveniences that hold it back which sucks because it could be one of the greatest anime fighters Bandai has worked on to date. Here’s hoping the sequel does just that.