JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood

Is this a Jojo reference? You bet. Prepare yourself to dive into Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Phantom Blood, a solid fighting game that faithfully follows the manga step-by-step and fight in those climactic battles that we know and love. Jump into the far too tight tank top of Jonathan Joestar as he battles the unbelievably evil Dio Brando in this recreation of the beloved manga. Deep breaths people, let’s get into it.

Gameplay

This is a simple fighting game, there isn’t a tremendous amount involved here when it comes to what the game offers. There are very straightforward fighting mechanics; punch, block and move but there are a couple others which are quite interesting. Heat Gauge is one thing, it works a bit like a combo meter where you build them up and unleash a devastating attack in a cool cinematic mode.

Following this, the best thing about Jojo; the poses. You can use poses to refill your stamina meter and power a ripple attack which gets stronger the longer you pose. Poses also improve your defense, attack and speed or give you more health depending on the combo; it’s the most intensely ‘Jojo’ thing I’ve ever seen and I love it. It has a drastically simplified fighstyle, closer to something like Shenmue or an old Fist of the North Star game.

A tremendous amount of this game is watching cutscenes which, again, if you’re a fan of the franchise, it really isn’t a bad thing. I enjoyed the serious nostalgia kick I got from watching those scenes.

Visuals

For its age, as it was a PS2 game, the visuals are iconic. They do very well to convey the size of Jojo against other people as he is a freakishly large person of an absolutely commanding stature. The visuals are faithful, if not a little low poly, and relay everything appropriately, mostly using stills but occasionally relying on the 3D animated characters for key shots.

32 characters have been added from the books with a great deal of clothing variations but many of these can only be played in specific modes and battles.

Story

As I have hit on several times in this, the game is relatively faithful to the manga, with a few differences being made. As you take control of the character during the fight scenes, the game has accounted for the fact that you might win against the opponent when the character you play was supposed to lose. It doesn’t change anything drastic, just alters a voice line or two and has the story carry on as normal without affecting the plot.

There is also Dio Mode, a game mode that lets you take on the story from Dio’s perspective. The battles have Dio in Jonathon’s place; this provided an interesting take on the story which I really appreciated.

Pros:

• Faithful to the manga
• Poses are hilariously accurate

Cons:

• A lot of cutscenes
• Needs more game modes