Koma Evolution!

In Super Stars, one of the hardest things to do was unlock all the characters once you got their Koma blocks. In Ultimate Stars, the process has been simplified and become more gaijin friendly. This is an especially welcome change since from the 40 different Manga series featured there are around 300 characters! That’s twice as many as Super Stars!

Ultimate Stars also introduces the dreadfully powerful 8 block characters. Just when you thought 7 blocks were tough enough… But with great power comes great responsibility. Some of the level 8 characters have tremendously powerful special attacks, but they are slower than usual to strike with them. Ichigo from Bleach, for instance, must place his Hollow mask on before he is able to attack, which provides your opponent with just enough time to counterattack before the special attack maelstrom.

There are 3 types of characters - comedy, strength, and wisdom – each giving a slight advantage to one character over another. Some characters now have an alternate form in addition the regular one. This way a character that was previously wisdom, can also be a strength character. These alternates may take up the same amount of blocks, but the shapes that they form and their pictures are different. This opens up many more options in terms of deck construction and strategy.

Speaking of decks, while Super Stars allowed you to construct only 10 decks, Ultimate Stars ups the ante with 50 different deck slots!

Battle Mode!

Do you remember playing Jump Super Stars and getting knocked out of the level? Sometimes you would get so close to making it back in the arena, but it didn’t matter because you couldn’t grab the ledge. Fret no more! One of the best new features is the ability to grasp those darn ledges to protect yourself from falling out.

By double tapping a direction, characters can now dash forwards, too. Some characters such as those from Bleach even have the ability to dash in the air as well as on the ground. Other characters can even wall jump. Pressing the Select Button activates a special action. Some characters only have a taunt, while others may dodge, counter, or even slowly replenish your special or life meters.

The “L” and “R” buttons are no longer used for blocking. When building a deck, you have to select one character to be your team leader. Then you can also select a fighting character or a support character and set them to L or R. While battling you can instantaneously change characters or bring someone in to help rather than having to use the touch pad which can make battling go a lot smoother.

Bring On The Wi-Fi!

Yes! Finally you can fight online against other people! Although Super Stars was a fantastic game, one of the huge setbacks was not being able to hop online and play other people who had the game, especially if you didn’t have any friends who owned it. It’s a whole new ballgame now.

Playing online can mean a classic one on one bout, or up to 4 players for a good ol’ battle royale. Ultimate Stars also takes advantage of the friend code system, allowing you to keep track of your friends and play with them when you’re both online.

Conclusion

All around, Jump Ultimate Stars is far superior to its predecessor. Although some characters didn’t make the cut this time around (sorry Hikaru No Go) you’ll find that you won’t really miss them. The important thing is that you don’t need to have experience playing Jump Super Stars, or even know how to read Japanese to play it. Websites such as gamefaqs.com offer up a translation of the menu screens and even descriptions of character abilities. The amount of time and effort poured into this game is easy to see. Even the smallest of details stay true to the characters and their stories. This is definitely a game worth adding to your collection.

System: Nintendo DS
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Ganbarion
Genre: Fighting
Release Date: November 22, 1006
# of Players: 1-4
Online Play: Yes

IMPORT FRIENDLY - ▲
LOAD TIME - O
ORIGINALITY - ▲
GRAPHICS - O
MUSIC - O
LONGEVITY - O
OVERALL - O