Game News I played Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash and it’s even worse than I imagined

Game news I played Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash and it’s even worse than I imagined

While the Jujutsu Kaisen manga should end this year, the Gege Akutami universe has not been the subject of many video games until then. Recently, a mobile game called Phantom Parade was released in Japan where it was a hit with its formula mixing gacha and role-playing with turn-based combat. But today, it is in a premium game for all current media that the adventures of Yuji Itadori are adapted. So, it was on February 2 that Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash was released and if I was not convinced after playing it at Paris Games Week, my fears were unfortunately well founded.

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Long, stiff and really uninteresting fights

Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash is a 3D arena fighting game in which you can compete in 2v2. The title is published by Bandai Namco and developed by Gemdrops, to whom we recently owed the excellent Star Ocean The Second Story R, ​​but especially by Byking who we know for the My Hero Academia games, namely My Hero: One’s Justice and its sequel. And given the gameplay of the title, there is no reason to be surprised as the game sensations are quite similar. To make a very quick presentation, we find three attack buttons, including one for doing combos, which allows you to release different shots depending on the direction of the stick, as well as two others for special techniques. On the defensive side, you can run, parry and dodge against enemy attacks. Obviously, ultimate attacks are also included.

Controller in hand, Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash is not very pleasant to handle. All characters are rigid, especially when they start sprinting where they become difficult to control. As for the fight itself, we can’t say that there is really a strategy because the principle is simply to strike first and hit the opponent quickly enough as soon as he gets up to continue to attack. chain it. You can even just use the basic combo button to win, without using the other moves. On the other hand, when you suffer, it is quite frustrating to see your character fall heavily and take your time to get up before being able to control him again. Generally, the rhythm of the fights and the attack animations are very choppy due to a small pause after each action which harms the fluidity of combat. Same thing for the camera which tends to get stuck in elements of the exterior decor and in the walls indoors which does not help the legibility of the confrontations.

After many games, it must be recognized that the fights are really long since the opponents must be defeated several times to win. However, the system is intended to be more subtle than it seems with this story of occult energy gauge and its extraction techniques which would be much clearer if the tutorial itself were clear. The translation is at times quite strange and it is unfortunately on certain specific gameplay points that it is the most confusing, which doesn’t help you understand the mechanics well. In any case, as said earlier, we do just as well by only using the basic attack which allows us to make combos, so what’s the point of mastering the specifics of the game system.

An adaptation clearly not up to the standard of the anime

If games based on anime are rarely gems in terms of gameplay, they often make up for it with their particularly generous fanservice side. Unfortunately, Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash doesn’t even manage to do that with a lack of care and polish that I’ve rarely seen in this kind of experience. This is felt from the game menu which simply plays extracts from the anime with the game mode icons at the top of the screen. On social media, people said it looked like a DVD menu and they were right. Afterwards, the pre-match interface is absolutely sad: the character models are aliased even though they are not animated and there is not even a character selection menu. Instead, you choose your fighter from a completely austere text menu. Moreover, to finish on the visual aspect, note that the PC version does not even offer a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels.

But hey, what about story mode? Once again, as in the majority of anime-inspired versus games, we are entitled to fights interspersed with cutscenes which take the form of images from the anime on which the characters speak. Where Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash does less well than the others is that it only presents pieces of these images and not in their entirety, which is much less readable. And obviously in this type of experience, the plot of the anime is too skimmed for it to be a good way to discover the work of Gege Akutami.

Apart from this story mode, the title offers online or local versus as well as a cooperation mode in which you face waves of plagues accompanied by an AI or another player. Basically a mix of role-playing and survival game elements. To complete the whole thing, a store is also included in which you can buy objects, illustrations or even outfits to personalize your fighters… and that’s it in terms of content. At least, for those who only took the standard version. For owners of the Deluxe or Ultimate edition, they can enjoy Jujusta 2024 or Jujutsu RBI, a retro-style baseball mini-game which recalls the NES inspired by the match between the exorcism schools of Tokyo and Kyoto.

Well, you will have understood, but Jujusu Kaisen Cursed Clash is a title to avoid, even if you are a fan of the Gege Akutami universe like me. Apart from the music which tries to stick to that of the anime and the rather faithful character models, there is not much that will please anime fans. From now on, all that remains is to wait for the release of the global version of Phantom Parade to hope to play a good Jujutsu Kaisen game… provided you are not averse to gacha. As such, Jujutsu Kaisen clearly illustrates the problem with video games inspired by anime and manga.