My Hero One’s Justice 2 Review – BIGGER and BETTER?

Alex got his hands on My Hero One’s Justice 2 and gave it a little review, and Jordan at SwitchWatchTV gave us the goods in video form, too. It is so nice that they do this for us, so let’s get right past the introduction and right into the review for My Hero One’s Just 2 for the Nintendo Switch!

What’s up guys, Jordan here bringing you our review of My Hero One’s Justice 2. This review was written by our man Alex, and he’s going to tell you why this is a much improved game over the original.

STORY

My Hero One’s Justice 2 is the sequel to yesteryear’s original game, a game Alex reviewed on our website (Forgive us for how it looks now since we updated the site), and these follow the story of the hugely popular manga and anime “My Hero Academia”, which centers around Izuku Midoria and his friends who all go to a famed hero academy in order to became professional heroes. Yes, being a hero is an authorized job in this world.

My Hero One’s Justice 2 as such follows directly in the first game’s footsteps and continues the story from the anime, mid season 3. The first game ended with the big clash between world-famous super hero All Might and his nemesis All for One, a battle that All Might managed to win but at the cost of finally using up the last of his hero powers. As fans will remember, our main hero, Midoria, is a somewhat rare breed in that he is of a minority group of humans who have been born without a power, a so called “quirk”. But he one day meets his all-time childhood idol, the hero All Might, who senses great things in the boy and his unshakeable desire to become a hero despite being born quirkless, and so bestows him with his own power – One for All. A quirk of raw power that has the ability to be passed on, and grows in power every time it does.

Now that the era of All Might has ended, it is therefore up to Midoria to harness and master his powers, so that he can be the new protector of humanity, a goal that All Might now vows his full attention to help him realize.

GAMEPLAY

Like the first game, My Hero One’s Justice 2 is a 3D arena fighter with an even bigger roster than its predecessor, spanning a whopping 41 characters from across all the first 3 seasons, almost DOUBLING the amount from the first game! After the opening cutscene and story sequence (presented to you like an interactive comic book like the first game), you are immediately dropped into a tutorial fight between Midoria and All Might that gives you a nice overview of the basic controls; like combos, counter attacks, unblockable attack guarding, and special moves.

After that, the game takes you to the main menu where it runs you through all the various options. Story Mode, which lets you relive the original story of the anime and rewards you upon fulfilling various conditions. Within Story Mode, some chapters will be divided into “main” and “sub”, with main progressing the story while sub will show the particular chapter from a different point-of-view. After beating the main story, you will also, like in the first game, unlock the villains’ story.

On many fronts, the budget seems to have been upped for this sequel, but story mode doesn’t seem to be one of them. One’s Justice 2 keeps rolling with the first game’s style of presenting the story in bite-sized chapters consisting of narrated comic panels, interluded with battles where characters will chat to each other about the current circumstances.

The opening 3D cutscene gave me false hopes that this had been changed, that perhaps in this installment we would be getting a full-fledged 3D world to run around and explore while the story unfolded in amazingly choreographed 3D cutscenes like in the Ultimate Ninja Storm games, but alas they cheated out once again. And we are sorry that we can’t show any of this, but the Switch’s recording feature isn’t permitted to record that. Not sure why Bandai felt that necessary, considering there’s not much to show anyway.

Mission

Next mode on the menu is Mission. Here you assemble a team of your favorite heroes and level up as you move around a board and defeat opponents.

Free Battle

Free Battle returns from the previous game, the mode no self respecting anime fighter can be without. It is exactly what it sounds like and is probably the mode you and your friends will be spending the most time on. A mode where you can put your favorite characters to the test by putting them up against each other in high octane flashy 1 on 1 or 3 on 3 battles to your hearts content and are able to set everything from cpu strength to the amount of rounds and time limit. As mentioned earlier One’s Justice 2 sports a much needed, much grander roster than the previous game, allowing you to now play most of the hero characters, though still with some odd omissions, and a healthy selection of villains as well.

The battle system itself also feels more polished from before. There are more stages to choose from, and if at if at any moment you forget what buttons do what, you can simply push the start (+) button and immediately see a list of your character’s moves.

As you fight and take damage your Plus Ultra meter will fill with level 3 being the highest. Pushing the right buttons on either level will make your character execute one of their signature moves which, if it connects, will deal some serious punishment to the opposition and in true anime fighting game fashion lets you sit back for a good 5 to 10 seconds while you watch an attack animation play out. With a push of L or R you can call either of your sidekicks to the field to do their thing, but these will also occasionally come to your aid on their own, and if you push the call button twice in quick succession you will command them to use their own special attack, as long as you have enough energy on your Plus Ultra meter that is. If you fight 3 v 3 and execute a level 3 special move, all three of your characters will take the stand simultaneously and execute a combined mega move. Some characters, if they have a special relation to each other, will even use special attacks when activating this function.

My only single gripe with this mode, as was actually one of my gripes with the first game too, is that all characters are unlocked from the get-go, except for three characters. One you need to beat the Hero Story to get, one you need to beat the Villain Story to get, and one that is purchased as DLC. Speaking of which, One’s Justice comes right out the gate with a £17 Season Pass that promises to deliver 5 additional characters at some point in the future.

Going back to all the characters being unlocked from the start for a bit, I get why they do it, as I am sure some fans who buy this game just want to be able to sit down immediately with their friends and play against each other, instead of arduously having to slog through the story in order to unlock them that way, as many other fighting games do. But personally I felt there was a sense of reward to starting with only a handful of characters, and then unlocking the rest as you went along in the story. Oh well, ce la vie. Then again, seeing as how story mode in these games are just glorified slideshows, I’m guessing it wouldn’t be very interesting for your friends to sit through waiting for you to unlock everything.

Network

If you have no friends within your vicinity though, the game has you covered as well in these modern internet times, as the Network option is exactly that and allows you to battle other players all over the world. Personally I only brave this mode in any fighting game if I wanna break my own self confidence and learn how much I really suck.

We know we are bringing you this review a little late, but the plus side to that is that we have actually had the opportunity to review this part of the game. Entering Network will bring you to a sub-menu where you are greeted with a hardcore DragonBall Z rip (no seriously, I swear I am hearing DBZ undertones) and you are then given the option to either play a quick unranked match where nothing is at stake except perhaps your pride, or you can play ranked where people are out for blood. Unranked pits you against random players of course, so if you want to battle your friends you need to either create a room, or search for one your friend has created. Since I have no friends who also play this game, I couldn’t test this, but I played a couple of casual matches, stayed FAR away from ranked, and was overall very satisfied with the connection. It ofcourse depends highly on your individual internet speed, but I was able to find matches very quickly, and aside from a bit of lag during my character’s opening animation the fights themselves flowed flawlessly.

One thing to keep in mind, is that you don’t choose your fighter before a match, but rather you go into the Change Settings sub menu to do so.

When you play either ranked or unranked you will be represented by your Player Card, which will show how many points you have accumulated, as well as how many Likes you have gotten (yes, you can compliment your opponent after a battle by giving them a Like, which I thought was really cool). I will get back to how you customize these cards in a bit!

Arcade

In Arcade Mode you choose a fighter accompanied with two sidekicks, and then choose one of three paths. Alpha, beta, and zeta. Each path will have you fighting a number of opponents, and the goal here then is to see how many points you have score based on your performance. After defeating a foe, your character and the CPU will have a short little chatter for added text flavor, but as far as I can tell it’s really just that.

Training

Should you feel the need for it, the game ofcourse has a dedicated training section, where you can hone your skills, either with a favorite of yours or perhaps you want to try out a character you have never played before in a safe environment? Training mode is essentially your debug mode, where you can manipulate your own character and your opponent in more or less any way you want. You can make it so you Plus Ultra gauge is always full so that you can practice your special moves (or do what I did and just cycle through every single character on the roster to check out their cool cinematics).

You can set your sidekick gauges to be full all the time, change combos to be normal or manual, and even decide the actions of your opponent down to the smallest detail, so that you can train how to counter different situations. You can also change the enemy from being a programmable dummy, to being controlled by a second player, if you have a buddy who wants to spar with you.

Customize

Customization is where you can really get creative. I previously expressed disappointment in that all characters were unlocked right away, but in return, various feats you do throughout each of the game’s modes will award you with either pieces of clothing that you can use in this menu to personalize all of your heroes, and titles and designs for your player profile (see, I said I would get back to this). There are hundreds and hundreds of customization options for both, adding immensely to the game’s longevity. It’s kinda like Dead or Alive in that regard, except not greedy and not charging you hundreds of dollars per season pass. There IS a shop in the game mind you, if you want to speed up the process a bit, but everything is bought with in-game currency that you earn through battles and other game modes. No micro transactions here!

Gallery

The Gallery is the final stop on our tour, and is where you will find all the movie clips, graphics, voice clips and music you have unlocked throughout your adventure, a feature I always appreciate in any game that has cinematic visuals.

VISUALS & PERFORMANCE

Nothing much is new in the graphics department, everything I wrote in my review of the first game still holds true here. My Hero One’s Justice 2 features the same, albeit slightly updated, cell shaded graphics as before. And hey, why fix what ain’t broken. For a triple A anime fighting game that goes for a very cartoony look, this artstyle with its vibrant and popping colors fit perfectly.

AUDIO

The audio in My Hero One’s Justice 2, likewise, does a perfectly fine job at keeping you in the mood! The main menu theme is a soft and sombre guitar riff that is nice and easy on the ears, making you feel relaxed so you can take your time deciding what mode you are in the mood for, or maybe just have it playing on loop in the background while you are writing a review wink wink. Meanwhile, most other modes fittingly sport a rocking soundtrack that gets you pumped up and ready for battle. I would comment on the battles themselves, but I am always so focused that I never really pick it up as anything but background noise.

All characters are also once again voiced deep sigh (yes I want you to sigh on my behalf Jordan) but ONLY in Japanese. I will spare you a rant, but Bandai is a big company with a lot of money, so I just don’t get why they refuse to shell out a bit extra cash to have the game dubbed in English as well. Why not give us both options? No, for some reason only Naruto and DragonBall Z gets that privilege. That being said, I cannot comment on the voice acting itself, since I can’t understand any of it. Hidosugiru, matakondo.

I mean, it’s not just that I can’t understand it, the game text is in English afterall, but when the characters small talk especially during story battles, I will have to divide my attention 50/50 between reading the subtitles and focusing on the battle itself. Plus there are no subtitles when characters say their victory quotes after a battle. Yes Bakugo, you’re cool, I have no idea what you said, but I am sure it was something cool..

VALUE

Although the story mode, as mentioned at the beginning of the review, doesn’t seem to have gotten a bigger budget since last time, every other aspect of the game feels much more polished than the first game. Where the first game was decent but did reek of being the first, the second installment feels much more solid. One of my biggest gripes with the first game, above all else, was the tiny roster that lacked many characters from the show that we were already well acquainted with, so this time I was very pleased to see how much it had expanded. In a fighting game, this is the most important aspect to me, as I feel the amount of playable characters ultimately is what gives the game variety and keeps it fresh.

My Hero One’s Justice 2 sits at a whopping £49.99 full retail price. In the US it’s $60 and Europe has a bizarre €70 price tag. Aside from the Euro pricing, it’s Not at all surprising for a triple A anime license game, but this time I actually feel the price is justified, whereas with the first game I didn’t feel it had enough content overall to justify itself. One’s Justice 2, both in terms of polish and content, is a definite improvement over its predecessor, and a game I can most definitely recommend to both fans of fighting games and ofcourse especially fans of the series.

There is a physical version of course which will run you a bit cheaper, plus there’s an extra crazy expensive collector’s edition which includes an LED figurine, a steelbook, badges and a proper nice box. It will set you back a bit of money, but if you want to buy either the standard version or collector’s edition and you want to support us at the same time then there are amazon links below which will give your favorite Switch reviewers a small cut.

---

Thanks whole heartedly to Alex for bringing this review to you guys. He’s very much the anime guy. Be sure to check out his other review from us last week in Langrisser 1 and 2 and also check out this week’s physicals video where this game was featured, and how about another review – Alder’s Blood was released on Friday too, so check that one out, we’ll see you guys over there!

Pluuuuus uuuultraaa!!!