My Hero One's Justice Review

Player(s): 1-2
Extra Features: Online Multiplayer (2), Local Multiplayer (2), Leaderboards

My Hero One's Justice is a 3D fighter developed by Byking and published by Bandai Namco. The game is based on Shonen Jump's "My Hero" manga and the anime called My Hero Academia. My Hero takes place in a world where superpowers are normal - about 80% of the population has some sort of superpower that they use for good or evil purposes. The superpowers are called "Quirks". Izuku Midoriya dreams of one day having his own quirk. After saving his friend from a villain, All Might, the world's greatest hero, gives Izuku his own quirk. Izuku must balance his schooling along with his new hero training and try to protect society against the League of Villains that seeks to destroy all heroes and seize control of the population.

My Hero looks similar to the Naruto fighters at first glance, but it plays a lot like the Power Stone games. Battles take place in a 3D arena and fighters are given the chance to run throughout the arena. Unlike Power Stone, there are no objects to grab however. Fighters must use their own physical or projectile attacks to their advantage. For overall button setup, you have buttons for guarding, dashing, jumping, normal attack, two special attack buttons, two assist buttons, and button combinations for three types of super moves. The overall fighting in the game is absolutely explosive madness on the screen even before the super moves start.

From the get-go, you pick your main character and two support characters that serve as assists. Assists have a certain amount of charge time before they can be called out that constantly needs to be recharged. The melee attack can be pressed several times in a row to form a combination of attacks. Both melee attacks and special attacks can be changed by holding in a direction before tapping the button. By holding in a direction before performing a melee attack, you will be given super armor to counter a normal melee attack in exchange for an overall slower attack and much greater recovery time afterwards. When an opponent guards too much, you can mix things up with a throw or unblockable attack (different depending on the character). The dash move can be used along with your attacks to help you get to your opponent faster and all characters have air attacks when jumping. Air battles can be common. Opponents can be dizzied by hitting them enough and you can also hit your opponent to where they get stuck in a wall and then get on the wall and continue to pummel them.

Each fighter has two special attacks that vary greatly per character. Some characters have projectile attacks and some have combination attacks or heavy melee attacks associated with their special attack button. Some characters seem way better than others when it comes to their special attacks. All characters have two super moves that are mapped to two buttons and a third team super attack that is mapped to three buttons. Each of the super attacks take different amounts of meter to perform and deal different amounts of damage. Level 1 super attacks are usually your basic types of super moves then Level 2 and 3 super attacks are huge screen-filling acts of ridiculousness.

The game offers a good amount of single player content - Story, Mission, and Arcade. Story takes great advantage of the game's overall graphical style. It uses animated tiles along with spoken dialogue to present comic-like action. Fans of the manga will greatly appreciate the look of story mode. Story mode takes you through the basic story of the manga and allows you to play as different characters through battles with CPU opponents. The story mode has branching paths where you can play through side stories with other characters or actually go through a separate path in the story then meet up with the two stories later. You'll be graded on how well you did at the end of each battle and unlock customization options at the end of each fight depending on the grade you got.

Mission mode is the other main single player mode. Mission mode is a survival mode where you pick three characters and go through sets of missions (battles) to work your way up to a boss battle. You have to try to do your best during a battle since all damage received is carried over to the next fight. Thankfully, you can switch between your three characters so that the damaged characters serve as an assist. Items are gained during battles that can be used to replenish health and give extra attributes to help out during the battles. Some battles have certain rules such as increased attack, increased defense or a lower time limit, which you can offset with the use of an item. Losses do not make you immediately lose everything but each loss will take away from your overall score after beating the final boss. Just like in story mode, you'll unlock items depending on how good your score is after beating the final boss. You can quit the mode and pick up with your last save later if needed or completely restart a missions set.

Arcade mode is your basic "get through the list of eight opponents" type of mode. We all know what to expect, we all know it gets repetitive but we all can't stand when it's not an option, so says Street Fighter V fans (including myself). There are some unlockable items that can only be unlocked through beating arcade mode with certain characters so arcade mode does have its uses. Speaking of unlockables, My Hero is full of them. About 90% of the customization items for your characters and profile are all locked from the start. The overall character customization in My Hero is rather boring once you see that each character has all the same accessories. All characters have different outfits that can be chosen in different colors but when it comes to accessories that are separate from the outfits, they all seem to have the same stuff. Besides costume and accessories you can change the phrases that are said before and after battles. There is also a gallery mode for viewing story mode movies, music, voices, character poses and artwork - the majority of this has to be unlocked.

Like with all fighters, you have a training mode where you can test out different techniques and moves. Battles can be played out in local or online play. Online play has ranked and unranked matches and you can search for unranked lobbies to join or make your own. The online play seemed rather stable overall. There were a few matches that got a bit laggy but it seemed to clear up rather quickly. To save time during online matches, you have to pick your character and overall team in the settings menu at the start of the online battle screen.

If you want a good single player fighter with a bit of competition in online play for the My Hero manga series, you'll probably enjoy My Hero One's Justice quite a bit. The game is filled with unlockables in just about every mode so you'll have to really grind in order to get them all. There are a total of 20 characters in the roster, which includes one hidden character that is unlocked by beating story mode. Even if you're not a fan of My Hero and enjoy Power Stone gameplay like I did, you'll probably find something to enjoy in One's Justice.

The Good:
+ Overall good single player content (Story, Mission, Arcade)
+ The graphical style matches the manga well

The Bad:
- Character customization variety is lacking