Developer: Byking
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PC
Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash – Review
It is almost a given these days that a successful anime gets a video game adaptation, most likely an arena fighter. That is why it was just a matter of time before one of the most loved series at the moment got one, namely Jujutsu Kaisen. The second season of the show just ended, making waves in the anime community every week with stellar episode after episode. Now the question is if the amazing animation translates well to a videogame, especially since Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash adopts a more unique formula with its 2V2 matches.
Story
The story of Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash follows that of the first season and prequel movie of the anime. This is a pretty usual thing for this type of game, letting you experience your favorite moments from a front-row seat. Yuji Itadori is a pretty average high-school student until he encounters cursed spirits at his school. These monsters manifest in places where a lot of negative emotions are collected. Things get even worse when he eats a finger that makes him possessed by Sukuna, an ancient cursed spirit and the worst of them all. Luckily Yuji encounters Jujutsu High, a school focused on using powers, called cursed techniques, to battle these monsters and protect Japan. This starts a war between good and evil, and a hunt for Sukuna’s fingers to get rid of this villain once and for all.
While the game covers all the important moments of the series, it is not recommended to make this your first encounter with Jujutsu Kaisen. Watching the anime first is an obvious recommendation since most of the nuance and great animation are missing from the handful of hours this campaign mode presents. Another reason Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash isn’t the go-to way to experience this story is the fact the game does what so many anime games do, presenting the narrative through screenshots. Each cutscene is just a PowerPoint of anime screenshots accompanied by the voice acting from the series. There is a bit more nuance this time around since it’s presented as a comic book, but it’s still disappointing since it goes over some of the most emotional moments in just a second. We have come to expect more out of these games thanks to amazing story modes like the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series. What Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash does have going for it is the fact that it was released right after the second season ended, making it a somewhat good way to refresh certain moments and explanations without having to watch everything again.
Graphics
Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash has your typical anime game look. The game doesn’t look bad, but there isn’t anything mention-worthy either. The characters and special moves translate well to the gaming world thanks to some cel-shading, but they are still rough around the edges. A noteworthy detail however is the main menu, which features animations from the first opening of the anime. This doesn’t change the game in any way, but it is an original concept that instantly gets your attention.
Sound
Where the graphics of the game don’t do anything too special, the sound design is something to mention. The music for the game is original but perfectly captures the sounds and feelings that make the anime stand out. From the recognizable tones of the opening in the main menu to the battle music, everything feels right in place in the Jujutsu Kaisen universe. The same can be said for the voice acting, as both English and Japanese lines come straight from the anime.
Gameplay
Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash is an anime arena fighting game that pits two teams of two fighters against each other. This makes for a more unique gameplay formula than most games of this genre since characters are built to work together with both offensive and supportive skills.
At the core of Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash is of course its fighting mechanics. Each character has a collection of combos and special moves, but not all of these deal damage. There are the normal attacks that charge up your cursed energy meter, which after some time unlocks the ability to use cursed techniques. These techniques are the only way to affect your enemy’s health and will deplete your cursed energy, making you repeat the process of hitting opponents with normal attacks or waiting for it to gradually recharge. This concept of charging attacks and damage-dealing attacks will feel pretty familiar to gamers who have dabbled with the Final Fantasy Dissidia series before. All of this combined with the usual blocks and dashes makes up a pretty well-designed concept, that fails in its execution. Due to things as heavy feeling characters and no way to get out of combos makes it a pretty slow experience. While this can be a deliberate choice to make every move count, it just takes away a lot of excitement.
The thing that does make the combat stand out a bit is the uniqueness of every character. Each of them has their own cursed techniques that operate in very different ways, like Nobara filling up your opponent with nails to deal damage at given moments, or Yuta being able to charge normal attacks with cursed energy for a specific amount of time. Getting your hands on a new character can be an overwhelming task sometimes because there is a definite learning curve, but this makes experimenting with them a ton of fun. You will however sometimes bump into less useful ones in single fights because they are more balanced for a 2V2 battle.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash features a handful of game modes, both for a single-player experience and online play. Firstly is the aforementioned story mode, where you just button-mash through screenshots to get to the iconic fights of the series. This mode is exactly how you would expect it to be, pretty short and straightforward. Here you will not only face other characters but also cursed spirits, offering a bit of variety in the battles. There is a relationship graph incorporated into the game, which feels pretty useless since you can’t interact with it in any meaningful way. It just develops after each chapter and gives some extra interactions between characters. These can be fun but offer mostly still images and no voice acting.
Aside from the story mode, there is the online versus mode, which acts as you would expect with casual and ranked matches. Players can also dive into a cooperative mode. This co-op mode is where you will most likely spend most of your time, especially if you’re an offline player. Here you will take on a series of enemies, mostly consisting of cursed spirits, to ultimately face a boss. Beating this series of enemies nets you experience to level up characters and money to buy support items or cosmetics. Overall this is a fun experience that rewards you for mastering characters, but it can become repetitive after some time. It does offer a progression system that keeps you involved, something that many anime fighting games fail to do. Lastly, there is a free battle mode which mostly works as a practice mode, since there is no way to play with your friends offline. This seems like a huge oversight, as fighting games are one of the go-to genres to play at home with your friends.
As an extra side note, we played Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash on the Steam Deck. It was already to be expected that the game would run well on this handheld since it was released on Switch as well, but we can now confirm that there are no problems. The game runs smoothly without any frame drops, aside some stutters during online matches.
Conclusion
Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash is your typical mixed-bag anime fighter. The game features an uninspired story mode and lacks presentation, accompanied by unoptimized gameplay. There is however some potential in the concept of the co-op mode and the uniqueness of the characters. Gamers who enjoy this type of online play may get some joy out of Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash, but casual fans shouldn’t be rushing to their nearest game store any time soon.
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