By Brad Harriger
I'm not very huge on fighting games, sure I'll play them when a friend brings them over or I'll buy them when they're cheap ($5 is the only time I'd buy SSFIVAE) but I'm simply not one that would dedicate my time to mastering every single move, especially when a majority of the moves are overly complicated for a casual "in the closet" kind of guy like me. Yet, there is one fighter that is an exception to the rule: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
Just a quick back story: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is a manga written by the immortal Hirihiko Ariaki, who has written a couple of others that aren't as successful and therefore we will not discuss. In the story, a British Nobleman named Jonathan Joestar has to fight his insane step-brother, Dio Brando. Not only has Dio killed his and Johnathan's father, killed Jonathan's dog, and even tried to seduce Johnathan's fiancé, but he even had the audacity to turn himself into a vampire by using a sacrificial stone mask. What a dick.
Jump forward hundred years and Jonathan's grandson Joseph and great grandson Jotaro Kujo have to finish the fight against Dio, who somehow now has a spiritual manifestation of his will called a Stand. While there are more stories to the series, they don't have anything to do with the game that I am writing about. If you are curious about the lineage of the Joestars or how everyone and their mother manages to get their hands on a Stand, I suggest reading the manga. you won't be disappointed. Hell, the the mindfuck of Steel Ball Run could be an article in itself.
Looking at the game from a distance, it looks like a typical 2D Capcom fighter. Two guys/girls/vampires/dogs on the screen at the time, hitting each other senseless until one falls and the winner moves on. What sets Jojo apart is the Stand system. Each character has their own separate entity that can be summoned at will to fight in tandem with the player. They all work differently and allow the player to set up situations for attack that aren't normally possible alone. When you get a little deeper into the mechanics of the game, the use of the Stands becomes prevalent and fucking crazy.
How many fighting games let you drop a steam roller on a Boston terrier? Not too many.
Musically, Jojo has some of the best music in any fighting game. Sure, there's no Guile's Theme, but dammit Polnareff's theme is amazing. The music has a weird Middle-Eastern sound to it, but putting it into a fighting game is so perfect. It could be because you are travelling to Cairo or because you have Muhammad as a character, but it fits perfectly.
The Characters themselves are just as wild as the gameplay, and are all faithful representations of their original manga incarnations. Whish is nice, because Capcom had little room to mess around without pissing off loyal fans. Joeseph was a perverted old man, Jotaro was a quiet rebel, Kakyoin was gay, Hol Horse was a pimp and so on. Capcom also introduced a new Character: Midler. In the Manga, Midler was never seen at all, instead you only saw her Stand, which was this weird floating head that could take form of inanimate objects and inorganic compounds. Somehow Capcom took that description and ended up with a stripper. I believe the term "First Fap" applies to this because oh my god was it hot.
In the PSX and Dreamcast version of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, there is story mode which details the exploits of Jotaro and friends as they set out to fuck up Dio's day. It's a fairly faithful reproduction of the original manga's plot. Since I started into the Manga after I played the game, I sort of had an idea as to what to expect. However the arcade game (and subsequently the HD remake, which got me to write this because I've spent a lot of time lately playing it) doesn't have a story mode. Single player is standard arcade mode fare. It's forgivable since I can only think of a couple arcade games that had a story which you could use a password to pick up where you left off, but it would have been nice for the HD remake to be a complete package.
Overall, from a guy that isn't a huge fan of fighting games, I have to say Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is an amazing game to have. Since they recently released an HD version on PS3 and 360, you can't afford to pass it up for just the fighting aspect. If you want to use the story mode, go with a PSX emulator and rom, since a used copy these days can get pricey. Also, if you are interested in watching the Anime based off of the Manga, and want it to be a tad funny, I can highly recommend TASAntfish's Abridged series. WRYYYYYYYY!!!!
