Diamond is breakable.
In my eyes, Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a timeless classic.
The iconic characters of the series and the various trials and tribulations they faced are a part of my childhood just as much as other well-known series like DragonBall Z and Yu Yu Hakusho.
Now with the resurgence of the JJBA franchise thanks to the brand new anime series covering the first four arcs, it’s the perfect time to be introduced to this fantastic work of fiction.
Well, just not with this game.
If nothing else, at least it looks good.
MSRP: $59.99
Platform: PS4
Multiplayer: Online only.
Voice Acting Selection: JPN only.
Played: 10~ Hours
One of the things that piqued my interest about Eyes of Heaven was that there was supposed to be a brand new original story instead of the usual retelling of the same old thing but unfortunately, the “new” story is a hodgepodge absolute nonsense.
To call the scenario “contrived and derivative” would be being kind indeed as I was constantly left feeling bored while raising my hand from time to time to say to myself, “really?”
Still, at its core, this is a fighting game we’re talking about so I wouldn’t put too much weight on the lackluster story mode and in all honestly, this could have been easily forgiven if the combat was enjoyable but sadly, this is not the case.
Eyes of Heaven plays like a mixture of the Narutimate Heroes with simple button combinations leading to elaborate combos and an emphasis on moving in a 3D plane with homing dashes and the like.
The battle arenas are something akin to the old power stone stages with items that can be picked up and thrown with pits that drain a bit of life if the player takes a fall.
It’s an overly simple system lacking in depth even more than the aforementioned Narutimate Heroes titles and during my trek through the story mode, I found myself trying to make it more interesting by juggling the enemy or comboing off different things but it never really took off.
What amounted was just a series of button mashing punctuated by the rare dual super moves if the AI lived long enough for me to charge one up.
Even though the combat was shallow, at least there was a roster of over fifty characters to choose from and if nothing else, I had an enjoyable time seeing all the characters and their different moves once.
That’s a whole lot of Jojos.
There’s also a shocking lack of a local-multiplayer mode so if you ever want to play against a buddy, you’ll have to do so over the internet and of course, your buddy will have to have a copy of his/her own.
I understand given the nature of how the camera is positioned, this would have required a split-screen multiplayer for local but the lack of it is a huge disappoint as for a fighting game, it’s a part of its bread and butter.
The online net code itself seemed to be serviceable during my test bouts but it was definitely no substitute for local multiplayer.
There’s a lot of new interest and goodwill rolling JJBA’s way in the last few years and I truly wish that this was competent fighter that I could point to get the gamer crowd interested in this legendary manga/anime series. However, the shallow, uninteresting combat, boring story mode and the lack of a local multiplayer mode makes this one hard to recommend, even to the most diehard of fans.
Fun Tidbit – The current running arc, “Diamond is Unbreakable” is quite exceptional and it’s one of the two only animes I’m actively following at this moment.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
