It's been a long time now, practically since the time of the Playstation 2, that making a game based on an anime that is moderately good has been easy. Designs copied from the anime, cell shading, a good OST, the occasional animated scene and the possibility for players to recreate the most epic scenes of the series, all of this makes up the base and almost recurring cocktail of all this type of productions. Making a mistake and having it go wrong is more difficult than hitting it. Unfortunately, JUJUTSU KAISEN: CURSED CLASH decides to do without certain of these ingredients, and pays dearly for the cost of those decisions.
JUJUTSU KAISEN: CURSED CLASH It is available for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch and PC.
OF CURSES AND DEMONS
In case there is anyone who doesn't know yet, this game is based on one of the most popular and successful manganimes of the moment. JUJUTSU KAISEN tells the story of Yuji Itadori, a normal young man who, from one day to the next, becomes a student at a sorcery school, after eating a finger of a being known as Sukuna, the King of Curses.
From that moment on, Itadori will meet and form a team with other sorcerers who are precisely in charge of exorcising the Curses that exist in the world, invisible to ordinary human beings and formed from people's negative feelings. Of course, and like any self-respecting shonen, the story is full of epic battles, endearing characters, powerful enemies, alliances, betrayals and all those little things that we like so much. All this seasoned with one of the most spectacular animations in recent years.
How could it not be otherwise, CURSED CLASH It follows the events of the animated series, although it is worth clarifying that it is only from its first season, even though the series has already closed its second season. This is why many important characters and situations will not be reflected in this title.
THEY THROW YOU WITH EVERYTHING
Lets start by the beginning: JUJUTSU KAISEN CURSED CLASH it's a Arena Fighter. What is this? Arena Fighter is a subgenre within Fighting Games that is characterized by developing fights in very open areas, practically mapped on themselves. In these areas the characters can move freely in any direction, sometimes even fly around the place, and distance themselves from their rivals for a long distance. The camera, unlike traditional Fighting games, is located behind the character we are controlling, and follows him at all times.
Controlling the character is relatively simple: with one button we hit our rivals with physical attacks, which can be chained into combos if we repeat the sequence. With another we use skills that consume our cursed energy and with another we use movements that steal cursed energy from the opponent. Every time we accumulate our cursed energy we will be able to activate other special moves, and if our meter reaches the maximum we will have the possibility of performing a move that automatically eliminates the rival.
As in the series, the characters have a move known as “Domain Expansion” at their disposal. What this causes is that the battlefield changes to terrain controlled by whoever executes that movement. All of the enforcer's attacks increase their damage and defense is also increased, working exactly the opposite for whoever falls within another character's Domain. The only way to survive is to hold out for as long as that domain lasts or override it with another domain.
A detail worth highlighting is that the game accepts up to 4 characters at the same time in each fight, being able to fight 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2 and 1 vs 2.
Fights that include two characters on the same team also have exclusive combined special moves, which vary depending on which character/s we are controlling. Of course, fighting two characters at the same time while alone is quite complicated, especially with the pace that the game has, but we will have to get used to it quickly because there are mandatory fights in the story. In any case, with a good strategy and careful eyes (and maybe a couple of retries) we will be able to advance little by little.
The title includes a Versus and Cooperative mode, something that at this point we take for granted in a fighting game, but I have to inform you that this option is ONLY AVAILABLE ONLINE, not allowing two players to sit on the couch at home and Enjoy the title together. A shame that a Fighting Game does not accept local Versus in the middle of 2024.
MORE BUDGET SAVINGS THAN MAPPA IN SOME CHAPTERS
I really have no way of knowing, but it seems that the developers, Byking and Gemdrops, had a limited budget to make this game and had to make do with what they had. Otherwise it is not explained what happened here. A while ago I had the opportunity to review the game KIMETSU NO YAIBA (of which you can read my review right here), and precisely the strong point of that game was that it made us relive practically the entire animated series, even animating all the best scenes from the anime with the game engine. Traced epic scenes, dialogues taken directly from the series and even new ones but recorded by the same voice actors finished off a great product.
The developers of JUJUTSU KAISEN: CURSED CLASH They had no better idea than to do without all that, making any feeling of connection with the anime go overboard. In Story mode, all we're going to see is sequence after sequence of static images from the anime, horribly cropped and in most cases accompanied only by text. It's literally watching one of the ugliest Powerpoint presentations, and then getting into some fight that may or may not be related to the anime. And this is important to clarify, because also in that “story mode” there are fights that never happen in the anime and they were taken out of the picture. So, like the fights that are in the animation have their “Powerpoint” with photos from the series and original fragments of dialogue, the fights invented for the game have static images generated with the game's engine and only with text without audio. Not even cell phone games do these things.
To make matters worse, not even the character models are worth highlighting and even their skins in other games (as in Fortnite) They are more elaborate and detailed than these.
The scenarios are not notable either, there are only a handful of them, quite simple and which often do not even remotely resemble the scenario where that fight takes place in the series. Do you want to suffer more? It doesn't even have the OST of the series. An instrumental version of the opening without vocal audio is the most we are going to recognize, accompanied by a handful of songs that try to sound like heavy rock, only instrumental, obviously. It seems that these people didn't even watch the series, whose soundtrack is almost entirely Hip-Hop.
THE TOP SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT
To add a bit of variety to the gameplay of the title, we have “JuJu Points”, which is the virtual currency of the game and is obtained by performing certain actions. This currency is used to buy different things, from purely aesthetic items, such as costumes for fighters, titles and templates for our online profile, to certain items that provide us with different characteristics and special abilities. These items are really important, and could be classified as the “equipment” that we can use in online modes. More strength, more stamina, the possibility of reviving and other things are the most vital additions when facing other people online.
In any case, the title never convinces. It lacks exactly what makes a game based on an anime good: that it makes us feel a real connection with the product on which it is based. The cuts in scenes, soundtrack, a fairly basic character design and a gameplay that is not very innovative and repetitive end up closing a mediocre product. It really seems like something rushed or done on a low budget, and it's a shame because I expected much more from a game representative of one of the animes of the moment. If you are a die-hard fan (but a really, really big fan, huh!) of the manganime, you are going to have fun moments. If you don't fall into that group, maybe it's best to let it go.
THE BEST
- A “new” 2 vs 2 approach, with combined blows
- Many costumes, items and images to buy with in-game money
- Some Made Up Alternate Stories Are Fun
WORST
- Without a doubt, the lack of animation (scenes from the anime or made with the game engine) in Story mode
- The lack of the OST of the series
- Technically weak. Unbalanced even at times