JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven Review

Played on PlayStation 5

Developed by CyberConnect2

Released 17th December 2015

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure must be one of the biggest and best manga/anime series out there. Its unorthodox approach to fights, storytelling, character designs and more are all the elements of the series that make it stand out to be so great. Whether we're following a prankster fighting immortal vampires with a Nazi, or observing a horse race across the US that is in search of Jesus Christ, there are so many wild and strange scenarios and moments in the series that make it equally loveable. Of course, with the success of anything, it will always try to expand elsewhere in the entertainment industry and a commonplace for that is the video game market. While the franchise has dabbled in RPGs like in its 1993 debut, beat'em ups and battle royales like in its most recent outing in 2019; its natural state is in that of a fighting game (as is with any other manga/anime IP). This isn't CyberConnect2's first time developing a JoJo game either as 2 years prior they would release the subtitled "All-Star Battle" in 2013 (remastered in 2022) where it would earn a respectable 71 on Metacritic and much love from existing fans of the series. Moving on from there, CyberConnect2 wanted to give the fascinating world of JoJo another try and, using the same engine, began work on its 'sequel'.

Switching from a traditional sidescroller perspective into a third-person beat'em up orientation, the team over at CyberConnect2 would conduct a couple more changes, from introducing the official voice actors from the "Stardust Crusaders" anime adaptation as the voices of their respective characters in the game to adding a whole story mode that would be curated and written by the creator of the manga himself: Hirohiko Araki. Whether these changes were great or not wouldn't come into effect until the game's launch where it found a middling reception, with much criticism drawn to its core gameplay feeling outdated and underwhelming, and its story only functioning to a fan-service degree. Since I love the series and often find myself playing games that just aren't good, I figured I'd give the campaign a try with a couple of matches here and there and whether it is because I haven't played CyberConnect2's other project or the JoJo bias within me was too strong, I think all those critics from 2015-16 were exaggerating this game's flaws.

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Story

The story will only work wonders on you if you love the series that it's adapting. To beeline the campaign mode, it took me about 9 hours, which is fairly average for any fighting game story. As expected, the narrative follows JoJo, or more specifically, Jotaro Kujo; the poster boy of the franchise, as he and his squad from the "Stardust Crusaders" arc travel between timelines and worlds to team up with the JoJos from their Parts to find and defeat the villain who is corrupting all of their allies. What entails is the most JoJo-style nonsense you'll have come to expect if you are familiar with the series, while encountering some predictable twists like DIO being the main antagonist of the story, the same way he's been a significant villain of half the Parts that are currently completed. The pacing and plot points that occur in the story are really basic, if not bland, as it devolves into rudimentary storytelling and tense sequences of "let's save the JoBro of every Part" in between exposition dumps that don't answer any questions until the final few chapters. The big, high-stakes moment halfway through the story was that all of our progress in collecting Jesus' body parts had been reset back to 1 and we had to do it all over again while coming across the same loveable characters who have been corrupted to serve as DIO's minions. It drags on for too long with little development across the whole narrative and, for it to be handled by Araki himself, makes it all the more disappointing.

However, it's not all bad. As I've stated earlier, if you love the series, you'll enjoy this game regardless. Seeing characters from different parts interact with each other like the "Golden Wind" crew seeing Polnareff pre-turtle was amusing, and how the multiple DIOs across the series had a power struggle between them was interesting to see. The only major flaw I have with this is how I wish we got to see even more of this as there are only 4 to 5 occasions like it and they served to be the strongest portions of the game's storytelling, which is weird considering this cross-Part narrative is the campaign's selling point. Again, it's not all bad. While Jotaro v DIO feels kind of overdone with how much the actual manga/anime series relies on it, I'd be lying if it didn't get me hyped up. A similar thing is the case with the repetition of saving the JoBros, because while it is monotonous, seeing Johnny and Gyro or Josuke and Okuyasu reunite did put a smile on my face. Revisiting or experiencing this game now that Part 9 has started to serialise feels like an odd blast from the past when JoJo felt inescapable in any media form, and while there are better anime game storylines out there, as long as you like the source material, you will most likely enjoy this and its mostly wholesome ending.

Gameplay

The gameplay was simple and fun that, unfortunately, started to lose its weight as the hours went on. Eyes of Heaven, at its core, is a third-person brawler fighting game, similar to other anime games like the new Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections, or the upcoming Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash. The moves you can pull off in Eyes of Heaven consist of basic light and heavy attacks, 4 special abilities, and a Style Action. In the campaign, all of this was entertaining to use as I was still getting my bearings with the game while all the moves felt varied and interesting to try out (even if some felt like they were slowing down the tempo of the game) and they brought out all the distinct characteristics of each character and embodied them in gameplay format. Joseph and his conniving mischief mixed with the trademark running away and trap-setting ability, Mista and his misfortune with the number 4, Jonanthan's straightforward Hamon strikes, and many more.

Additionally, in the campaign, your full moveset and damage output/recovery rate were limited unless you invested skill points into the skill tree. After each fight, nearly everyone on your slowly, unlockable roster gets a near-equal amount of XP to level up and unlock abilities that were individual from one another. I liked the idea behind this as it gave more significance as to how you were fighting and how you were utilising each character, while also learning them at your own rate in preparation for the online modes. The only complaint I have about this is that you would essientally go in blind when purchasing new moves as the game doesn't explain what they are or do, and you'd have to find out on your own or by searching up a wiki if it was unclear what it did. This was the case with many of the parrying abilities (which all have weird timings).

Another core element of Eyes of Heaven is the Dual attacks you perform. When you select your character you also get to select your Partner, who is effectively an AI companion (which can be controlled by a player outside of the campaign) which allows for things like the Dual Combo, which temporarily enhances you and your teammate, or the Dual Heat Attack which is a flashy, animated super move that gets special animations depending on who you are paired up with. This was really great fun to watch but after seeing each animation a couple of times, their "wow" factor dispersed quite rapidly. The AI companion is a mixed bag for me since the 2v2 idea is fantastic. Being able to get 3 other friends to dish it out via a JoJo fight was thoroughly enjoyable but during the campaign, the AI would do this 50/50 where it would either abuse your enemies or do absolutely nothing to protect itself from harm's way; this bi-polar difficulty also applied to the AI you would go up against.

The 'Style Action' that I mentioned earlier was a cool gimmick that I think other fantastical fighting games should employ. Each character would have a set fighting style that would influence their Style Action. Hamon users would charge up their Hamon bar to be able to perform their signature Ripple attacks (which do extra to vampiric enemies), while the Vampire fighters would be able to siphon health from their foes mid-battle. There are more like Stand Users, Mounted and Spin Users, and I think this additional approach to combat is minimal enough at a casual level to go underused but could be significant at higher levels of play (then again, I'm not great at fighting games, so don't quote me on that). I do wish there was a greater level of interactability between all of them but with what was given, I'm fairly satisfied.

While fighting and brawling are the main aspects of the game's fundamentals, during the campaign, you were able to do some other intriguing minigames. Playing poker with D'Arby, running around the stage to find Shigekiyo's Harvests or going up against Enya's zombie hordes were the three bonus activities you'll find yourself doing before you're able to see the ending and while they were cool mix-ups and divergences from the button mashing, the poker minigame was probably the only that didn't overstay its welcome and felt pleasing to go back to, and that's because, well, it's poker. The Harvest collecting became tedious and Enya's rip-off Black Ops zombies mode would lose most of its traction by the time you do it once, only feeling annoying that you're forced to protect your braindead AI companion from some lacklustre enemies, when instead you could be executing some extravagant combos and animations.

Finally, the stages. No fighting game can go without a backdrop for the action-packed chaos that is bound to unravel onscreen. In Eyes of Heaven, each stage is linked to a significant place in their respective Part. From "Phantom Blood"'s burning manor to "Stone Ocean"'s sideways space centre, each environment was greatly realised, if not without a couple of issues. Stages in this game were either as amazing as I just mentioned, or had one of two flaws: empty and lifeless or filled with too many hazard zones that interrupted the flow of gameplay. Unfortunately, it feels like there were more flawed stages than exceptional ones.

Characters

I can't judge characters from the game without judging their source material counterparts, which in return, is actually a fantastic achievement that the developers were able to do justice to the characters and adapt them as accurately as we were exposed to them in the manga/anime. There is only one issue I had with the characters and that's more of a preference for the story than a complaint at the writing, and it's that I wished for more interactions between them, especially if they were from differing Parts. Other than that, no discernable feats or flaws here.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere as a whole was excellent, mostly due to how much it tries to bring that JoJo energy to the gaming medium. Visually, the animations looked crisp and amazing and 100% brought the whole, over-the-top feeling of the anime to life perfectly. The art style it emulates was also fantastic and seeing the majestic, 2D-drawn pieces of art on 3D models felt appropriate and at home with the rest of the game. However, if it wasn't for the timeless art style, the graphics would bring the game's quality down as, even for a 2015-16 game, they look fairly outdated and not at all impressive; this can be attributed to how they used the same engine they did for their 2013-prequel.

Audibly, the game is also great. It almost feels like they had people from David Productions (the studio behind the JoJo anime) assisting with the sound design and music production given how well it fits into the JoJo world, that it's uncanny. From high-pumping rock to smooth jazz-funk, to even the darker-tone electronics, each track from the OST was pleasing to listen to, albeit not as memorable as video game soundtracks tend to be. The audio design behind every punch and slam and suspenseful boom in the cutscenes worked well to compliment the onscreen actions, but once again, didn't stand out to be as memorable after having beat the game, which is slightly a shame given how the anime constantly gave us a new, satisfying sound effect per Part, like The World's time boom in "Stardust Crusaders".

Story - 7/10

Gameplay - 5/10

Characters - 8/10

Atmosphere - 7/10

Good

While it does have some undeveloped mechanics and flaws embedded in nearly every department, if you're a fan of JoJo, you'll enjoy the experience it provides, albeit, not to the same degree you'd expect.