Namco Bandai Game Event!

We popped by Namco Bandai's game event to check out some their SJ games. And they had a lot of them!
By January 30, 2014

 
There were so many Shonen Jump games at the event, it felt like they were throwing a party for us! We only had a few hours to check everything out, but here are our impressions of the games. 

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution

One of the biggest draws of the event was Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. This is a continuation of wildly popular series that's become the premiere anime-based fighting game series. This new sequel continues the story from where the last game left off, adds some new playable characters, brings some back that haven't been in the game for a while, and makes some tweaks to the battle system. The roster in this game is incredibly huge, with over 100 playable characters including the newest addition—Mecha Naruto! A robotic version of Naruto with three seperate transformation stages, including a giant-robot version! Kishimoto Sensei himself developed and designed the character, and it looks like he had a lot of fun doing so. Look for this game, some time in 2014. 

Urian Brown

One Piece: Romance Dawn

 

I get to play as Luffy and his crew in an RPG on my 3DS?! SOLD! I can't think of many things that would be more fun than exploring the world of One Piece and beating up whoever gets in my way. This game takes the best things about One Piece and lets you take control. Travel from island to island to see the story unfold in cool scenes that appear to be taken from the anime and then defeat bosses to level up your characters. Gum-Gum Pistoling a soldier has never been so satisfying. The turn-based fighting is fun and lets you do a variety of signature moves. However, the story appears to be taken straight from the series so don't expect any major surprises. Maybe you can save Ace? Now that would be something! Game comes out soon, February 11th! 
 
Alexis Kirsch
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battles 


When Namco Bandai announced they'd be bringing the new Jojo's game Stateside, I jumped up from my chair and started doing strange poses I was so excited! The game is a 2D fighting game with a roster of 32 playable characters from the entire series. It's a good mix of the old-school characters everybody knows and newer ones that might seem unfamiliar to some. The game has a fighting system that'll be familiar for anyone who's played a fighting game. There are three attacks—light, medium and hard. You can block, throw, taunt and pull of devastating super moves once your meter's charged up. The game also has some stuff not usually seen in fighting games, like mounted combat! A couple of the characters fight on horses, which is really fun and adds a new dimension to the battles.

Because the game draws from so many parts of the Jojo's story, some characters have stands, other's don't. But everyone has some kind of special ability that'll help them in a fight. The game features both a story mode and arcade mode. The arcade mode has been added as a special bonus for the Western release. The story mode is straightfoward and will let you see bits of the story as you play and unlock characters. The game is getting a physical release, but it will only be available at Amazon.com and Club Namco. Otherwise, you can download it digitally. Look for this game this spring!

Urian Brown

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z

 
Although this game has already come out, it was also at the show. It's the classic DBZ fighting game featuring all your favorite characters. But there's a twist! You can go online and make teams and have up to eight people battling on the screen at once! And you can customize your characters and build them the way you want. This game is available now!
 
Urian Brown
 
Although the bulk of the games were SJ-related, they had some other interesting games on the floor as well. 

Dark Souls II
 
 
New game, same pain. As a huge fan of the original game, I've been looking forward to this sequel for...forever. I watched as others died repeatedly and laughed at their lack of skill. As a veteran, this game will be easy for me! Then I took the controller and I'm pretty sure everyone else was then laughing at me. The game has been tweaked enough that it will be a challenge for even the best players. Your healing items are severely limited at the beginning of the game. Only one Estus flask?! Enemies attack you in groups and lack of patience is punished immediately. The game starts with many paths, but no direction. Every path led to death and more death. Prepare to die, indeed. You can start dying a lot on March 11th! 
 
Alexis Kirsch
Tales of Symphonia Chronicles

 
This is a two-game pack that includes both Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Both games have souped-up graphics and have been reformatted for modern TVs. They've also got some new enemies, items and other goodies added in. And you'll be able to choose English language or the original Japanese. That's kind of a big thing, because they were only available in English before. Now, I've been known to dabble in a Tales game or two. In fact, I've played several. And I can tell you, playing ToS brought back a lot of the warm, fuzzy feelings as I remembered the hours spent playing the game. I also remembered the weird smell the carpet had in the apartment I used to have, when I was playing the game. Memory is a funny thing... This game comes out Feb. 25th! 
 
Urian Brown