Is my My Hero One's Justice worth it?

Having watched the three available seasons of My Hero Academia in a row just left me wanting for more and since I'm a proud owner of a Nintendo Switch I decided to give My Hero One's Justice a try. I've been playing it for about three weeks now and I'm finally able to give my honest opinion on it. With this said, let's find out if My Hero One's Justice is worth it.

GAMEPLAY

My Hero One's Justice is a 3D Action-Fighter where you can choose to fight as some characters of the show, be them, heroes or villains. I say some characters because the roster is a bit lacking in numbers, featuring only 23 characters, being three DLC. However, since every character has a different quirk their gameplay varies a lot from each other, meaning there is no character that plays the exact the same. They do, however, have all access to the same main mechanics.

When playing this game the first thing you must be aware of is its rock, paper, scissors mechanic. Each character has a Normal Attack and a Counter (Yellow) that beats Unblockable Attacks (Red) which in turn beat Guarding which then beats Normal Attacks and Counters. Because of this mechanic, you must be constantly mixing your attacks to make you less predictable. For example, If your opponent notices you guarding a lot he'll probably end up using Unblockables to punish you or he can just constantly attack until your guard breaks. Although Guarding seems like a great defensive option a good Dash is a solid pick as well! Good positioning is a must in any fighting game and this one is no different.

Each character has also access to two different Quirk Attacks and Specials Attacks. Special Attacks require the consumption of one or two bars of your Plus Ultra Gauge. Also, by spending three bars you'll launch a devastating attack with the help of your sidekicks that deals tremendous damage.

Also, before a fight, you can take two other characters with you that will function as your sidekick and while in combat you can summon them, once their bar is full, to perform a single attack. I wasn't much of a fan of this mechanic but ever since I bought Dragon Ball FighterZ I fell in love with it since it allows me to extend my combos to absurd limits and deal a ton of damage. There's nothing better than taking Endeavor with Todoroki and Bakugo as sidekicks and chunking 75% of your opponent's health in a heartbeat.

Talking about combos, this is perhaps my biggest gripe with the gameplay. Although it's fun comboing someone to oblivion it's not fun at all to be at the receiving end of it since there is little to no way of breaking your opponent's combos. Going online was one the most frustrating experiences I've ever had in a fighting game but we'll leave that for the end, for now, let's see what else this game has to offer singleplayer wise.

MODES

There are a variety of modes in this game and the first one you'll probably play is the Story Mode and as the name implies you'll be playing through the Anime's plot. First, you'll go through the Hero Side and then when you beat it you'll get to play the Villain Side. As you progress through the story you'll be rewarded, based on your performance, with accessories to customize your favorite characters. While I enjoyed this mode at first it became dull after I beat the Hero Side. While the story itself is great the way it's presented is very boring and lacks a clear effort from the developers.

They decided to tell most of the story through images and text, like if you're reading through a comic book. I like the aesthetic of it but If you put out a game for 59,99€ I expect it to have more than 2 or 3 cutscenes!

If you want a bit more of a challenge though you can try to take on the Mission Mode and do your best to complete missions with special conditions! To me, this was way more enjoyable than the Story Mode since some of the battles were actually hard to complete due to the special conditions. Also, as you progress through a map the damage you take carries over so, sometimes you must choose if you want to complete the entire map right away or just take the shortest route to the final mission. Also, just like on the previous mode, you'll be awarded customizable items based on your performance.

I've talked a bit about customization and I believe it to be a very strong point of this game. You can customize an entire character with different accessories, different voices, and mottos. Also, when you go online others can view your player card and even that is customizable! You can change how it looks by unlocking different symbols, borders, emblems and combine your favorite to make a truly unique player card.

Speaking of the online mode, when I bought this game I really wanted to be good at it and climb the online rankings, however, a few things stood on my way. First the ranking system itself. It's so bad that it can't be called a ranking system because in this game if you lose you don't lose points meaning that there's no way to catch up to the other players who have played ranked since day one. Even if they are bad at the game they can still have 10,000 points! Then, the matchmaking, there isn't one. As soon as you go online you can go against people of your own level or monsters with way over 30,000 points that combo you for days. And finally the lag. This isn't the most fluid game and sometimes you'll notice some fps drops, now imagine that coupled with lag... Mix all this in a pot and you have the worse Online Mode I've seen in a fighting game.

Also, I almost forgot there's an Arcade Mode in the game where you just play against the CPU in a series of matches. In the end, you get an exclusive item for the character you beat it as. It's somewhat worth checking out.

CONCLUSION

My Hero One's Justice is game that offers a fair amount of singleplayer content and a ton of customizable items to unlock, however, the boring Story Mode and that atrocious Online Mode makes me say that this was a very disapointing game, but I am hopeful that the next installment improves on this games flaws! Also, bear in mind that this review is based on the Nintendo Switch version, I'm sure that issues like the fps drops don't exist on other platforms.

With all this said, is My Hero One's Justice worth it? Not at full price and only if you are a fan on the show!

THANK YOU FOR READING!