The world of manga and anime has found a reliable ally in video games: every great series now has one or more titles under its belt, ready to bring a basically similar gameplay, but with that peculiarity - inspired precisely by the particularity of the product itself - that knows how to be loved by his fans. So while more and more tie-ins dedicated to these works continue to be announced, the series that manage to break into the hearts of their fans continue, advancing with sequels of various kinds. After spending several hours testing My Hero One's Justice 2, we have taken stock.
Stylish
In stylistic terms, My Hero One's Justice 2 does not abandon the idea of the predecessor. We are talking about budding heroes, and as such they must have all the typical characteristics: special attacks, thundering effects and a series of dynamic scenes will be the daily bread of every single fight. Unfortunately this is not enough: it seems in fact that the rest has remained purely unchanged, with the fights not at all technical, and with the result often left to chance. So if there was the potential to be able to bring to the public a deeper title in terms of gameplay, this opportunity was wasted, and it is not clear whether for "laziness" or simply not to distort the idea of the game. Here we are then to experience the classic 1vs1 fighting game, with two support characters, a super bar (called Plus Ultra) and totally destructible scenarios. If this is not technically well done, however, it will give a plus to the fun game, moving the matches "in the air" a few times between rubble and explosions.
For the rest, the effect rendered on the screen of My Hero One's Justice 2 is pleasant: in fact, it seems to see the tables of the comic in motion. The study done by BYKING it is meticulous, and brings on every face, gesture or action the same spirit that characterized the original series and that made millions of fans fall in love. Technically, unfortunately, some problems arise in the excited phases of the clash: frame slowdowns and a poorly structured camera management affect the games, generating a bit of annoyance (especially since these battles are mainly based on techniques that, without technical bugs, they would have rendered perfectly).
New characters, same problems
A fan service title of this magnitude mainly needs one thing: characters. A detail that can be seen by studying the progress of other similar titles is that, the more characters are present in the game, the more the title will be loved by fans. Unfortunately, even here the choice between innovation and optimization fell on the second: the characters already present in the previous game - except for a few small fixes - are strictly the same in terms of techniques, models and so on.
In My Hero One's Justice 2, however, new characters come into play: among some previous shortcomings, some new arrivals (both in terms of heroes and villains) and attack variants (such as Midoriya's Shoot Style), now the choice is really wide enough to make it more fun.
If this makes you breathe a sigh of relief, I have to give you the bad news right away: the rest of the game isn't innovative at all. The modes, which remain the same as the previous game, have not been improved in any of their features, but above all they carry on the same problems they had previously. A fast-paced and told story mode with snapshots taken from the animated series will be what you are given to relive the plots of My Hero Academia: with the possibility of experiencing both the story of the heroes and the villains, the only "new" thing is the progress of the plot until the clash with Overhaul. With a few hours the story can be completed, and the "forcing" immediately catches the eye: some clashes that would have employed villains not present in the game have been replaced with anonymous henchmen and always the same, while all the part of the "bad guys" is invented from scratch (also because the clashes of the anime are only at the end). There are also missions, which will allow you to fight (not too original) using your heroes as if you were an agency.
(Not so) Plus Ultra
Of course, the game is meant for fans of the series, and My Hero One's Justice 2 could only insert - or rather improve - a customization sector of your hero. By being able to unlock an avalanche of accessories through missions, you can fix your hero or villain as you see fit, giving it an appearance that is sometimes totally different from the original. Unfortunately, this is a feature that requires excessive grinding of Missions, something really tedious if we think that in the end they are only aesthetic. You will even have to repeat several missions just to drop the desired item.
Finally, in the game there is no lack of modes vs online, offline and against the CPU, as well as the usual Arcade mode which, however, turns out to be the freshest of all, and perhaps even the most accurate. Unfortunately, the steps forward from My Hero One's Justice are very few: we had said it in the review.
A better story and an expanded roster, perhaps with other students, could continue the rise of this game.
Unfortunately, it was not: the roster cannot bear the weight of the whole work, and for this reason My Hero One's Justice 2 becomes a simple stain of the game that it could have been.
