Fighting Games Fri… Sunday: Jump Force Found an Audience After All
One of the biggest questions that surrounded the release of Jump Force a couple of months ago involved whether Bandai Namco and developer Spike Chunsoft had an audience in mind for it, because it seemed difficult to precisely pinpoint. The worldwide audience was being prioritized here, shown through the game being revealed at E3 2018 in Los Angeles and the more realistic art style — one that didn’t work out for every character involved. Despite the lack of cel shading, the game still looked “anime” enough for most characters to look recognizable, featuring familiar faces from Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho, and more. The game being aimed towards audiences outside Japan meant it couldn’t include more obscure — if not entirely unknown for westerners — roster additions like predecessor J-Stars Victory VS.
Yet, the game was planned to only have Japanese voices, thanks to the logistics involved in assembling voice actors from California, New York, and Texas for many franchises available. Japanese voices are the preference for dedicated anime fans, but the art style showed how both companies involved had a bigger audience in mind. The wider audience tends to (but not always) prefer dubs, as they were introduced to several characters in the game thanks to various series airing on programs like Toonami on Cartoon Network. The much-criticized art style also showed who they wanted to target. Given those aspects and the concern about the game’s overall quality, it was tough to see just who they wanted to buy this.
However, sales have indicated that Jump Force absolutely found a nice audience, especially in America. It debuted at number 2 on the American NPD charts in its month of release in February, just below EA’s Anthem and above Far Cry: New Dawn. Though it fell out of the top 10 in March, the NPD also indicated that it was one of the best-selling games of the year thus far. That’s impressive for an anime versus game with a merely-okay advertising campaign and reviews, which shows just how appealing anime overall has become for the wider market.
It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint whether everyone who purchased the game was impressed with the quality, though user reviews were about on par with those from critics. With these sales, there’s no way Bandai Namco isn’t already giving serious consideration towards green lighting a successor.
But let’s not jump the gun here in delving too far into features a potential sequel could have. Jump Force is still receiving plenty of new content on a monthly basis, the biggest coming in the form of nine DLC characters. Three of them are set to arrive by the end of this month, which will include Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh!, All-Might from My Hero Academia, and Biscuit Krueger from Hunter x Hunter. Kaiba was requested by Yu-Gi-Oh! fans after Yugi was confirmed. But several MHA fans were surprised to see how All-Might was missing from the initial roster, and that Deku was the only character to make it in, given how important a character he is and how popular MHA has become.
This also applies to Katsuki Bakugou, also from MHA, who will be one of the six DLC characters coming later this year. The others are from franchises that already have plenty of representatives. Toushirou HItsugaya and Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez from Bleach will also be among them, who will come along with Majin Buu from the Dragon Ball series, Trafalgar Law from One Piece, and Madara Uchiha from Naruto. These will be the seventh roster additions all three aforementioned franchises, since they’re the most popular ones featured. It’s a shame they didn’t feel the need to add more characters from comparatively underrepresented franchises like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fist of the North Star, and City Hunter, or those nonexistent in this game like Cobra or Kinnikuman.
The other content coming will include new outfits for player avatars, new stages, and arena and tournament events. The new outfits will be a big deal, as creating a shonen manga-style character of your own is one of the key appealing factors in the game. It allows for selecting from several styles (including crazy hairstyles) and outfits that either take inspiration or are lifted from other franchises. Like the cast, the items and styles mainly originate from the most popular franchises involved, and include outfits from characters that weren’t included in the game — like Sakura’s outfit and hairstyle from Naruto. Perhaps outfits from others will be part of the remaining DLC packs, many of which will be free.
Jump Force was a surprise hit for Bandai Namco, enough that it’s possible they could release more content after the announced DLC releases. The chances of this will depend on how large a player base the game has maintained near the end of 2019, and whether Spike Chunsoft has the resources to dedicated to continuing work on it while handling other projects. It would be a surprise if they weren’t already planning a sequel, which will ideally offer more variety despite the potential for the biggest franchises that dominate this particular game still being popular. Here’s hoping.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
