Posted by Before I start the review, I would like to apologize for not uploading anything last week. I was planning on writing a spooky story for Halloween, but I was hilariously busy and never found the time. I might try to write something this week or next weekend, but I don’t know if I will for sure. Now on to the review.
In all honesty, I pre-ordered My Hero One’s Justice on a whim, then kind of forgot about it. I never found myself counting down the days in anticipation for the game, and I’m kind of glad that I didn’t. If I had known how good the game was going to be, each day would have been agonizing.
My Hero One’s Justice is incredibly fun. I was wondering how the game would be since it was a 3-D arena fighter as opposed to the typical 2-D(ish) fighting games. In reality, the 3-D arena aspect of the game makes it far more interesting and fun. The main cause of this is due to just how visceral the action is. Every punch of every combo is ridiculously satisfying, and watching your opponent get flung back fifteen feet and shatter the wall behind him only adds to it. The controls are relatively responsive, except when it comes to jumping, continuing combos in mid aid (sometimes), and cancelling combos. Other than that, the game handles wonderfully, and each and every character is a ton of fun.
My Hero One’s Justice sports a respectable roster of playable characters, and all of them handle differently. Some people, like Deku Shoot Style, can dominate in the air, while others are strongest on the ground, like Shiguraki, and some characters are competent in both, like Todoroki. I only have ten or so hours invested in the game so far, but from what I’ve seen, no character is particularly bad. Every character is strong in some different aspect, and I think that that’s great. However, I’m no expert in fighting games, so there may very well be one character who’s far stronger than everyone else, but I have yet to find that character.
Each character has three primary attacks on the ground, two of which can change based on either directional inputs or just holding the button down longer, but this varies from character to character. Every character has an unblockable attack that they can use by pressing the primary attack button while blocking. Some attacks have super armor (I think that’s the technical term but I might be wrong) which will go through any attack and connect no matter what, but you will still take damage. However, if two super armor attacks connect, the character who finishes their attack first will get launched by the second character’s attack. This can be annoying, but in the long run it’s fine. Every character also has two special moves, called Plus Ultras, which each require a different number of bars to fill. The strongest Plus Ultra, however, also requires your sidekick gauges to be full. The first two Plus Ultras are activated by holding down the guard button and pressing one of the two other attack buttons. Sidekicks are characters that you choose to go into the battle with you and you can periodically summon to attack your opponent. Unlike normal assist characters, sidekicks can be staggered and knocked back by attacks, and I don’t think that a sidekick can deal the final blow in a fight, but I might be wrong. Some characters also get alternate moves in the air.
The game has a surprising amount of content. Between a story mode, missions, arcade mode, online and local multiplayer, and character and profile customization, there’s a lot to do. Story mode has two sides, one where you play as the heroes and one where you play as the villains. I’m almost done with the hero story, and I’m interested to see the villain story. The hero story covers the second half of season two through the first half of season three of My Hero Academia, but incredibly simplified. In that respect it’s fine, but it’s nothing special. I have yet to try out missions, but arcade mode is pretty fun and offers a lot of replayability. In arcade mode, you choose a character and fight six opponents. If you win, you unlock some customization items. On that topic, there are a lot of customization items, both for characters and your profile. In total, there’s probably over a thousand customization items between character items and profile items. All items are obtained through gameplay by completing missions, objectives within missions, or by using the in-game currency (the game doesn’t have mictrotransactions).
Now as much as I love the game, there is one irritating aspect–the AI. The AI is not good. At all. The AI tends to run around like a headless chicken, and that includes running into walls. The AI also loves to jump around like the floor is lava. This can be incredibly annoying for obvious reasons. One mission took me four or five attempts, because the AI kept running and jumping around, so I missed half of my attacks, then the AI would use an annoying long-range move that would then be transitioned into a close range combo. Other than that the AI doesn’t spam OP moves or hit stupidly hard like some fighting games tend to do.
So far, I’m having a ton of fun with My Hero One’s Justice. I look forward into delving deeper into learning characters and combos, as well as dressing them up in various costumes and accessories. Overall, I would recommend this game, especially if you like My Hero Academia, fighting games, or both.
Broad Scope Entertainment 