My Hero Academia is a manga written and drawn by Kōhei Horikoshi of which an animated series has been made, currently in its fourth season. In addition to the animated series, two manga spin-offs, three OAV episodes, two anime feature films and three video games have been made.
The first game, titled My Hero Academia: Battle for All it was only released in Japan for the Nintendo 3DS in 2016. It was later released in 2018 My Hero One's Justice, title that we have reviewed in the past, and now about a year and a half away comes its sequel, My Hero One's Justice 2.
My Hero One's Justice 2 is a fighting game developed by Byking and distributed by Bandai Namco Entertainment and is a direct sequel to the first chapter bringing some improvements and changes.
If you want to know what news this title has brought or if it is a better product than its predecessor, you just have to read the our review.
End of the beginning, beginning of the end
My Hero One's Justice 2 is a direct sequel to the first chapter, and in fact the story mode will start right from the end of the first game.
We were initially confident about this story mode thanks to the animated sequences done with the game engine, but our excitement subsided when we realized that such epic scenes were only made for the start of the game and for the last battle. .
The way of telling the story hasn't changed from the first chapter. It is in fact structured in levels, where before the battle we will see a comic with scenes from the anime, all completely dubbed in Japanese and subtitled in Italian.
For each story level we complete we can get up to three customization items respecting the conditions that are mainly divided into three types: complete the level, complete it without dropping a certain percentage of life and defeat the opponent with a Plus Ultra (we'll talk about this later on this last point).
Story levels can be divided into main, which once completed will unlock the next one, and secondary. The secondaries are not mandatory to do but are mostly used to investigate events from the point of view of different characters.
As in the first game by completing the story "heroes"The counterpart will be released"villain“, Where you see the events of the game from the point of view of the villains. Two additional characters can be unlocked by completing their respective story (hero and villain), but they will be available immediately for those who pre-ordered the game.
As for the story itself, as mentioned at the beginning, it will start from the ending of the first One's Justice, then from the incident of Kamino with the battle between All Might and All for One which corresponds to the end of the first story arc of the third season.
Then it continues with the provisional license examinations and ends with the first story arc of the fourth season of the animated series, the battle against the Yakuza clan "Shie Hassaikai"(Eight Precepts of Death).
The road to becoming a hero
A major flaw in this story mode was the intention of wanting to "stretch the soup" with fights against generic characters with moveset all the same, giving a really poor and not very credible pretext that led to these fights.
Despite this, we really enjoyed the last story arc, which proved to have been much more refined than the previous ones.
In this part, in fact, we will often find battles with dialogues taken directly from the series and different special restrictions dictated by the plot, which greatly increased the immersion as well as offering a bit more challenge.
Finally, the last battle of the game was really well done, it was made in a particular and unique way with animated scenes created by the game engine. If the whole story mode was made like the latter then things would have been much better and different.
Let's create a hero agency
A novelty of this title is the mission mode, in that we will be able to create an agency of heroes by recruiting game characters using Hero Coins, which are obtained by completing various challenges.
You can recruit all characters in the game and increase their level of recruitment and support. If their support level drops to zero they will be removed from the agency.
With your agency you can go on various types of missions with up to three characters, one main and two shoulders.
By completing the objectives on the map we will complete the mission and we will be rewarded with various items, such as the support ones that will increase the statistics in this mode.
Instead we will fail if the resistance of the area will drop to zero or we will be defeated. At the end of the mission the characters will get hero coins and experience points to level up, as well as support points but in case of failure your support will decrease.
We also find the Arcade mode, a classic sequence of clashes where you will have to choose one of the three available routes.
The peculiarity of this feature is that, at the end of each fight, it will start a short skit between our character and the defeated one who somehow deepens the relationship between the two characters.
Compete with heroes from around the world
The local mode allows you to organize offline challenges with settings and time limits, by setting the type of battle you can fight not only against the CPU but also against friends or in a team, until you have a 3vs3.
In the case of a game with more than two players, the others will control the Shoulders.
Shoulders controlled they cannot deliver the coup de grace to the main character and if they are hit they will leave the battlefield having to wait for their gauge to recharge.
Also present the classic Online mode where we can compete against players from all over the world in simple matches or in ranked matches. There will also be the opportunity to participate in limited time tournaments.
We tried a couple of online games and were impressed with the speed of online matchmaking, thus managing to fight with other players almost immediately.
Being in the latest fashion is also part of the hero job
From the main menu you can access the Customization which allows us to equip the various characters with different costumes and accessories, leading to an immense personalization of the characters.
These purely cosmetic gear can be received as rewards in the various game modes or bought at the shop by spending Hero Coins.
Also present player customization where you can customize your own card and a message that can be viewed online.
Finally, always from the main menu you can access the gallery in which we will find the unlocked movies and the voices of the characters, as well as other collectibles.
Fight to the last Quirk
We talked a lot about what the title has to offer but now let's talk a little about his gameplay.
Unfortunately, compared to the first chapter we have not found many news and improvements. The combat system itself is still handled by attack combos quite simple, dodging and the use of your Quirk, that is special abilities that change from character to character.
The fighter can be alone or accompanied by a shoulder or two that can only be summoned for a single attack when their personal bar is charged.
We also have a bar Plus Ultra which can be charged up to three times by attacking or taking damage, once charged, with the right combination of keys you can use up to two plus ultra techniques per character.
One of the excellent novelties of this title is the possibility of having the shoulder use one of its techniques at the cost of a plus ultra bar, or with three bars the player together with the two shoulders they will use their plus ultra technique at the same time.
We were instead impressed by the number of playable characters, went from 20 to 40 characters, to which future DLCs will be added.
But even with all these new features and improvements the title has enough issues like character balance, not at all balanced, where the fastest and those who attack from distance are favored, a defect already present also in the first My Hero One's Justice.
Sometimes the fights could turn out quite chaotic both for the presence of many special effects and for the zoom on the characters that is activated randomly.
For sure the title is fun to play if you are a fan of the saga, but it does not offer great depth for more competitive players. Sincerely we expected a better job in so many respects, it seems more a great expansion than a full title.
Heroes in the shading
The graphic sector in cel shading it felt perfect for the anime style of the title, and the few animated scenes were flawlessly crafted.
We find great care in the character models as well as in their Plus Ultra techniques visually they are a joy for the eyes, however, the level design of the game is a little more lacking.
The game appears well optimized, but the graphics settings offer very few options to improve performance on less powerful PCs.
Finally, the sound sector is well done, but all the ost of the anime soundtrack are completely absent.
In conclusion
Summing up we can say that My Hero One's Justice 2 is a title enough fan service which brings several novelties and improvements.
Among these we find different game modes, a great customization of the characters and a doubled cast, but there are as many defects, from a sparse story mode to an all too simple and unbalanced gameplay.
Certainly a step up from the first One's Justice, but such additions in our opinion are not sufficient to justify a full title as it almost looks more like an expansion of the previous title.
A game that it will appeal to all My Hero Academia lovers but if you are just looking for an excellent and complex fighting game then the title is not for you.
