Second Look - JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle

Note: This review contains spoilers for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

Back in 2014, we reviewed JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle, developed by CyberConnect2, and though we were positive, we’ve since grown dissatisfied with how we covered the game then. With the release of the remastered version of the game, All-Star Battle R, we thought that now would be the best time to look back on the original version, originally released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and see how it stacks up ten years later. Not only that, but whether or not an ESRB copy of the game is now worth its aftermarket value (around $55+) versus the amount we paid for it originally (around $40 at SDCC 2014 directly from the Bandai Namco booth). As it turns out, thanks to the recent delisting of the game, your enjoyment may really depend on whether or not you already own it (and the eBay price may not be completely worth it).

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki is a multigenerational epic about the Joestar family’s continuing battle against evil. As of this writing, the manga is divided into nine Parts, each one following a different Joestar, all of whom have a name that can be shortened to “JoJo”. In Part 1: Phantom Blood and Part 2: Battle Tendency, battles are usually conducted with Hamon, a breathing technique that can produce energy identical to the sun. Starting from Part 3: Stardust Crusaders, most battles involve Stands, a physical manifestation of a person’s life energy whose appearances and abilities reflect the user. The anime also recently finished adapting Part 6: Stone Ocean, though that part is not free from spoilers for the sake of this review. For the sake of simplicity, we will also be using the original Japanese names of characters and Stands rather than the localized English names.

The various gameplay modes.

All-Star Battle celebrates the manga’s rich history through the Story Mode, which allows players to play through the story of all eight Parts, at least on paper. In reality, each Part consists of a series of Episodes with battles against the characters represented from that Part, with Secret Missions that reward players for performing manga-accurate actions with various unlockables. Any DLC characters also receive their own separate EX Episodes, though every Episode also has an Another Story version that lets you play the same fights but from the enemy’s perspective. Episodes also impose different manga-accurate conditions on each battle, like constantly draining health or an enemy with higher defense, that players have to overcome.

Before each battle, players can also use Gold, earned through normal gameplay, to buy up to three Support Effects that provide assistance during a match. These include buffs like constantly regenerating health or starting with a full Heart Heat Gauge (more on that later) or debuffs like lowered enemy defense or cutting the enemy’s health in half. After each battle, across all modes, players are graded from D to S based on Time left, remaining Life and the unexplained Quality stat.

As for the quality of the storytelling, it leaves a little to be desired. Each Part is covered as best as possible based on the available roster, with quick text summaries bridging each Episode together and even full voiceovers to bookend each Part. However, the text can come off more like Cliff Notes summaries of each Part, so it in no way replaces the full experience. At certain points it’s also clear that the developers had to improvise. Since Pannacotta Fugo only had one fight in Part 5: Golden Wind, against the unrepresented Illuso, his EX Episode, and part of his moveset, is instead based on the sequel light novel Purple Haze Feedback. Since Part 8: JoJolion had barely started when All-Star Battle originally released, this Part is fabricated whole cloth, consisting entirely of battles against the Joestars from the previous seven Parts and Josuke Higashikata 8 has barely any characterization.

Fugo's lines and moves are supplemented with
material from Purple Haze Feedback.

For total newcomers, as we were when playing this around the initial release, the choice of whether or not to play through the Story Mode is also a bit of a catch-22. On one hand, playing through the Story Mode requires spoiling yourself on every Part, especially how the first seven end. On the other, apart from earning Trophies, progressing through the Story Mode is required for unlocking a good chunk of the roster, as well as making vampires and the Pillar Men playable in the daytime stages.

You see, these six characters (Dio Brando, Wamuu, Esidisi, Kars, DIO, Vanilla Ice) have a Stone Mask icon on them on the Character Select screen, indicating that they can only be used during nighttime. Beating each of them during Story Mode places the Red Stone of Aja within the Stone Mask, which lets them survive the otherwise lethal daylight. This restriction on vampires and Pillar Men seems a little ridiculous, especially since this restriction is so easily lifted, though the only reason it’s there is because CyberConnect2 was that dedicated to replicating the series’ lore. At the same time however, you have to admire their accuracy to the source material.

Beyond the Story, Versus and Practice Modes, there was also an online Campaign Mode. In this mode, players can spend Energy to fight either A.I.-controlled player avatars or a specific character in a boss battle. You could also set an avatar of your own and have it fight other players while you were away from the game. Either way, winning matches would increase your Campaign Score to rise within the ranks and earn Support Items for use in Campaign Mode. Playing Campaign mode was also the only way to earn extra cosmetic options for various characters, including new SFX, taunts, poses and color schemes. Defeating a boss would also unlock alternate costumes.

I described this mode in the past tense because with the delisting of this release and all of the DLC from digital storefronts, the online servers went with it. This means that Campaign Mode is now completely dead and any cosmetics originally exclusive to this mode are now permanently inaccessible. Just don’t even try connecting the game online in general anymore, as you will only come across connection errors and trying to download Campaign Data from the PlayStaion Store through the in-game prompt will softlock the game. Even if you avoid trying to connect online manually, however, you will still have to dismiss two connection failure prompts that now pop up every single time you play the game. That said, unless you cared about alternate costumes, you’re not really missing much from my experience, as unlocking anything was a lengthy and tedious process.

The international release of All-Star Battle also included an exclusive Arcade Mode, accessible simply by pressing Square in the Main Menu, where you fight eight random characters in a row. Though a neat extra, this Arcade Mode is rather bare-bones, as your only options are the CPU difficulty (Normal, Hard or Very Hard) and whether or not you want Stage Gimmicks (aka Stage Hazards) before selecting your character. Unlike other fighting games, completing Arcade Mode doesn't reward you with anything special apart from extra Gold, influenced by how well you did in each fight (the Stand Harvest also has a chance of appearing and rewarding even more Gold). If you don't have anyone else to play with, this will at the very least act as either another source of Gold or the main source of replay value outside of fully completing the Story Mode.

As for the actual gameplay, All-Star Battle operates on a 2.5D plane, similar to the Tekken series. While each character has their own range of abilities, they all also have a Heart Heat (HH) Gauge that gets filled to a maximum of three levels by inflicting or taking damage, though Hamon users can manually fill up the HH Gauge with the Style button. With one bar of the HH Gauge, characters can unleash a special Heart Heat Attack (HHA) while the more powerful Great Heat Attack (GHA) costs two bars. In an interesting twist on similar mechanics, if you Taunt your opponent while they’re down, you’ll perform a Taunt Attack that slightly lowers your opponent’s HH Gauge, which can often be just enough to stop them from performing one of their stronger attacks. There’s also a refillable Guard Gauge that will gradually deplete the longer a player blocks, which discourages playing too defensively, or else a Guardbreak will occur and briefly stagger the player. Performing a Stylish Evade by blocking at just the right time will also deplete the Guard Gauge.

Jonathan beginning his HHA.

Although each character’s special moves aren’t too difficult to pull off, there is an Easy Beat mechanic in place for players who want to perform a string of moves with less complexity simply by spamming the Light attack button. If enough Light attacks are chained in a row, the combo will typically end with an HHA, which can feel satisfying to pull off no matter how skilled you are at the game.

On top of the base mechanics of the game, certain characters (Joseph Joestar, Vanilla Ice, Akira Otoishi, Shigekiyo Yangu, Guido Mista, Pannacotta Fugo, Ermes Costello, Enrico Pucci, Johnny Joestar, Gyro Zeppeli) also have a special gauge or set of icons based on their abilities. For example, Enrico Pucci’s gauge tracks his progress towards evolving his Stand while Vanilla Ice’s gauge shows how long he can use his Stand’s abilities. Characters from Part 7: Steel Ball Run can also pick up Holy Corpse parts (up to three) to increase their power and eventually unlock hidden mechanics, which can make battles between characters from this Part particularly tense. Characters can also enter Rush Mode if certain attacks connect, where mashing the Light attack determines the winner of the clash, though only certain characters like Jotaro Kujo and DIO can initiate it. Additionally, when undead characters take damage, they also have a bar of silver health that will gradually refill if they avoid taking damage for a certain period of time.

An example of special icons with Enrico Pucci.

As with the requirement for playing with undead characters during daytime stages, CyberConnect2 displays a burning passion for the lore of JoJo by incorporating it into the behaviors of several moves. For example, Okuyasu’s GHA makes him lose a sliver of health because a flower pot flies into his face, reflecting the end of his fight with Josuke Higashikata in Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable. Certain metaphysical abilities also have a meta impact on the match: Star Platinum, The World and King Crimson can freeze the timer; Killer Queen Bites the Dust rewinds the timer by ten seconds and not only heals Kosaku Kawajiri, but places both players back in the opposite starting positions; and Made in Heaven rapidly speeds up the timer while slowing down the opponent. At the beginning of a match, certain characters will also exchange unique dialogue with each other, often lifting lines directly from the source material or taking certain things into account, like Jolyne Cujoh encountering a younger version of her father, Jotaro Kujo. In a neat touch, Fugo’s dialogue with the other Part 5 characters act as though a dropped plot point from the manga, in which Fugo would have betrayed the Team Bucciarati, actually happened.

Fans of the series may also come across certain Easter eggs that can add a unique flavor to matches. For example, if DIO uses his GHA on Jotaro, Jotaro will visibly fight back as he did during the climax of Part 3. If Jotaro also uses his time stop ability during the GHA, then a special animation plays that not only continues the scene as it played out in the manga, but also lowers the overall damage he takes. If Pucci successfully evolves his Stand into Made in Heaven in the Kennedy Space Center stage, an additional animation will play. A certain punch animation from Giorno Giovana’s Stand, Gold Experience, is also full of additional easter eggs depending on who he punches. Bites the Dust also has certain lore-accurate effects on certain opponents, like reversing Stand transformations and reverting Kars (Ultimate Lifeform) back into base Kars. If Bites the Dust interacts with Made in Heaven, it will also not only revert it back into Whitesnake, but prevent Pucci from evolving his Stand from that point on.

Due to the amount of time that we had sunk into this game on our own, we also dug deeper and noticed some smaller interactions between Pucci and Jotaro or DIO that can affect the flow of that matchup. For example, if Jotaro or DIO perform a time stop while Made in Heaven is active, they’ll move normally for the duration of the time stop. The most interesting interaction we noticed, however, was that performing a time stop just as Pucci finishes speaking the 14 phrases will interrupt Whitesnake’s transformation into C-Moon, with the latter’s model appearing from behind the user. Interacting with Pucci in this state will revert C-Moon back into Whitesnake, though the transformation cannot be interrupted in this way again during the match. I’m aware that this wouldn’t matter for most people, but it’s an honestly pretty cool discovery nonetheless.

We also tried exploiting the developer’s reverence for the manga as much as we could and discovered that ending with a Draw in All-Star Battle is a bit difficult. Through normal play, the only way to get a Draw result in a round through damage is if both players manage to land an attack with sufficient power at the same time (and even then, a winner can still be determined if it occurred in the final round). Through our testing, we found that getting a draw through a Stage Hazard was impossible, as both characters were still left with a sliver of health if they both got hit at the same time. Although Okuyasu’s GHA damages himself at the end, he will not take damage if he had already defeated the opponent with the initial damage from the attack, which prevented us from getting too creative. The only way to consistently get a Draw result intentionally was through Time Out and once we finally saw an entire match end with a Draw, we learned that since the game can’t determine a winner, it simply gives you the option to either quit or try a Rematch.

Regardless of any given matchup, there are twelve stages that players can choose from, each with a Stage Hazard, which players can turn off, that replicates certain scenarios from the manga. Most Stage Hazards will reset between rounds, though some will recur in set intervals and the Cairo hazard is one-time only. While most Stage Hazards trigger right away, the hazard in Philadelphia Seaside starts after a small delay. Finishing off an opponent in the final round with an HHA or GHA while knocking them back in a specific direction will result in a Dramatic Finish, triggering a cutscene that replicates a certain moment from the manga relevant to the stage. As a neat touch, the Dramatic finish in DIO’s Mansion will turn Vampires and Pillar Men to ash.

Each stage has a Dramatic Finish.

As previously mentioned, no matter how you perform in a match across all Modes, you’ll earn Gold. While Gold can be spent on Support Effects in Story Mode, it’s primarily used on unlockables in the Gallery, including character models and BGMs. Throughout our playtime with the game, we eventually earned enough Gold that we unlocked every single item, which felt satisfying in its own right.

Since the developers were so committed to the lore of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, it only makes sense that All-Star Battle faithfully recreates the look of the manga. From the character models to the written SFX to even the smallest details in the environments, fans of the series will find that nothing was spared. In fact, there’s a nice detail that if a playable character appears in a stage background, they will not appear if a player uses them during a match. One exception though is that the Pepsi sign in Morioh Town was genericized, most likely for legal reasons (though the anime adaptation notably retains the full logo). Similarly, both Akira Otoishi’s model and render lack the “AC/DC” cufflinks in the international release, likely for the same reason. Even though this release is locked at 30 FPS, which gives it a relatively slower pace compared to other fighting games, the game feels no less fluid and it isn’t hard to get used to.

Although the translation is fairly accurate from what we can tell, based on our limited knowledge of Japanese, we did notice occasions where it was clear that the English subtitles didn’t even remotely match what the character said. Most of these came from the localizers having a bit too much fun and inserting jokes and references where there weren’t any. For example, when Joseph Joestar beats Lisa Lisa, his win quote reads, "Why did it have to come to this?! You are tearing me APART, Lisa Lisa!", a clear reference to the infamous cult film The Room. Two other examples of blatant line changes are renaming Jolyne’s HHA from “A thousand hits!” to “Balls deep!” and subsequently having her say “How deep can I go? Balls deep!”, which makes no sense in the context of the move dealing one thousand hits (and hearing her say “Sen”, the Japanese word for 1,000), since she’s supposed to say something along the lines of “How many times can I catch/throw it? 1,000 times!”; and having Joseph say “Damn meased to pleet ya!” instead of “Happy! Fun! Nice to meet you, man!” during one of his Taunts.

The most egregious change, however, involves Joseph’s “Your next line is…” Special Move when used against Ermes. According to the subtitles, Ermes is supposed to say “Your foe is right here!”, but she instead says “Come at me, bro!” This change makes absolutely no sense in the context of Joseph’s move, in which he accurately predicts what his opponent will say next, seemingly for the sole purpose of inserting a then three-year-old reference to Jersey Shore of all things. To top it all off, the game still acts like Joseph had accurately predicted the line anyway.

Apart from this, there were some smaller errors, which likely came from mistakes slipping through while proofreading a lengthy script. The ones we caught were both from Story Mode: an inconsistent spelling of “Disc” during Part 6 and an instance of “Crazy Diamond” slipping through (instead of the localized name “Shining Diamond”) at the end of Part 4.

Of course, there are localization issues that are mostly outside the developer’s control, usually brought on by legal issues concerning the plethora of music references. For example, Funny Valentine’s Stand, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, was shortened to simply “D4C” and Guido Mista’s Stand, Sex Pistols, was changed to “Six Bullets”. Infamously, Jean Pierre Polnareff’s name was changed to Jean Pierre Eiffel, which feels baffling considering that literally ever other localization of the series, except the later Eyes of Heaven game, let him keep his original name. It's also interesting in hindsight what characters or Stands got to keep their names, like the Part 6 Stand Dragon’s Dream, which was recently changed to “Drake’s Dream” in the English localization of the Stone Ocean anime. There’s also one workaround brought on by the inherent differences between Japanese and English, with Josuke Higashikata from Part 4 and Part 8 having their Part number appended to their names (ex. Josuke Higashikata 4) as a replacement for how their Japanese names are distinguished with different kanji.

As for the voice acting, it’s a little hard to judge, as Japanese isn’t our native language. What is cool, however, is that since All-Star Battle released after the first season of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure finished airing, all of the characters from Parts 1 and 2 retain their voice actors from the anime. That said, while the other voice actors did at least a decent job, we thought that Josuke (Part 4) sounded too deep for a high schooler. The music is also phenomenal and very memorable, though it’s a minor gripe that the BGM for each match is determined by Player 2’s character by default (players can still change the BGM to their liking before the start of a match). We’d also advise turning off Robert E. O. Speedwagon (listed as Guide Character under Options) as soon as possible, preferably after hearing all of his dialogue once, since he prevents you from making progress on any screen until he stops talking, which can last several seconds.

Before ending this review, it’s important to bring back the point made earlier about the inaccessibility of the online content. While the lack of a Campaign Mode or online multiplayer by themselves don’t detract from the experience, the lack of DLC means that if you obtained a copy of this version of All-Star Battle for the first time after the release of All-Star Battle R, you will permanently lose access to eight characters. These characters are Lisa Lisa from Part 2; Old Joseph, Iggy and Vanilla Ice from Part 3; Shigekiyo Yangu and Yoshikage Kira from Part 4; Pannacotta Fugo from Part 5; Narciso Anasui from Part 6; and Ikuro Hashizawa from Hirohiko Araki’s previous series, Baoh the Visitor. Although this series of DLC is preserved in the remastered All-Star Battle R, not getting to play as these characters on the PS3 version means that now you’d technically get an incomplete experience unless you only care about the base game as originally presented on the disc.

For all of its faults, All-Star Battle is still a fun fighting game from a mechanical standpoint, though the level of fanservice and dedication to detail is something that could really only be appreciated the most by fans of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. If you were a fan of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure before the series really blew up in America, there’s a chance you already own or owned this release and have found something in it that you enjoyed. As for those coming in after the delisting, weigh your options and consider if this version of the game or All-Star Battle R is right for you. If nothing else, the original All-Star Battle now makes for a great collector’s item.