The All Star Battle Combo Platter for Just ¥16980

V-Jump spreads can’t go by without an accompanying Famitsu article. This does not contain the full disclosure of JoJolion Josuke’s character because this is all about that little bit at the bottom about Kira, the release date, and CC2’s “shocking announcement!”

And the shocking announcement is… the release date and price of the two different versions. The standard edition will be ¥7980 ($86.04), and the special edition that comes with all the goodies you see up there like the unique box, gold plate with Araki original art, Jotaro and Star Platinum figure that can be paired with an accompanying Dio and The World figure to recreate their final showdown, and Star Platinum Stand Disc Print Game Soundtrack will be ¥16980 ($183.07) Yeah, not exactly the most outstanding of announcements being made up of things we mostly already knew. I think the figures are the only things we didn’t already hear about from V-Jump.

That isn’t all, though. Kira and the Hayato Memo Book were both in that spread too. I like the aesthetic of the Memo Book. They couldn’t reasonably do it any other way, but it’s still cool to see. That isn’t what you’re curious about though, I imagine. When I got to this article, I was thinking the same thing: Is Kira DLC only? And it looks like the answer is yes. Based on what it says under his picture in the article, Yoshikage Kira will be a DLC only character. Both the vanilla and special release will contain a promo code that will allow you to download them for free in the first copy run, but that’s going to be pretty vexing if we have to import this because I’m under the impression that foreign DLC is not a fun thing to get.

At least we know that he is in the game. There’s still a few more months before launch, so there should be a few more Famitsu articles and V-Jump spreads. I wonder who from the roster we’re missing in previews.

(All images from Famitsu. Copyright CC2, LuckyLand Communications, Jump, and Hirohiko Araki)

Ninja Storm and All-Star Battle Special Event with a Shocking Announcement!

Oh, man. CyberConnect2’s twitter finally has something interesting again.

That link will take you to the special BandaiNamco page for the event, and you can follow that to the JoJo specific page here since I imagine that’s what most people reading this are after.

The information at this point is very vague with no concrete content announcements. This is a small venue by tickets only, obviously held in Japan. There will be press, so we should be getting video footage of the goings on soon after the 16th. The big, teasing blurbs locked away in there are that ASB will have a new playable character, I’m not sure if that’s a new playable character that hasn’t been announced in V-Jump or if it’s a new character from the demo we saw however long ago that was, and that there will be a “shocking announcement.” It’s such an important “shocking announcement” that it gets mentioned four or so times. I have no idea what that could be, but a big, surprising announcement about ASB released at a special event a few weeks before launch? We could be getting a western release announcement.

It’s tentative now, but that special announcement is in 11 days. Hope for the best! We’ll keep you posted.

More All-Stars for Battle! Johnathan Joestar and Caeser Zeppeli

Well look what slipped in under my nose. Silicon Era was able to sniff out a V-Jump article confirming Johnathan Joestar and Caeser Zeppeli for All-Star Battle. Unfortunately, I cannot find the article in question from them, V-Jump, or CyberConnect2. Hopefully I’ll be able to find that soon and edit it into this post later. The SE article notes that Johnathan will have Zoom Punch so that we can have awesome matches of Zoom Punch vs. Star Finger. Caeser’s moves haven’t been revealed yet. If this is for real, I’m sure we’ve got a Famitsu special and trailer coming our way in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, for all the Caeser fans I know are out there, entertain yourselves with this video I found in the comments of SE’s article.

Maybe that’ll be a move. Caeser will drop a chair on you and then sit in it for the finishing damage.

Johnathan Joecat

Jump Fiesta 2013 has started. Jump Fiesta is Shuesha’s Convention for all things Jump comics, so it’s a good event to get information and learn about products coming out of Jump properties. Most notably from this one is that CyberConnect2 is going to be releasing the 3rd PV for All-Star Battle. That should be coming out either tomorrow or Sunday. For the time being, though, there are other products from the anime booth.

Have you ever heard of Tobineko? Yeah, I hadn’t until now, but it’s apparently cat themed dolls of anime characters and now it’s gotten to JoJo’s. So if you ever wanted the most cuddly Johnathan possible, you can and can also look forward his fabulous grandson, Joseph Joecat. But that’s not all.

Yes, all JoJo cats are fully compatible with figure environmental displays. Or maybe this is a figure display made specially for the Johnathan cat. I’m legitimately not sure. Of that or of much else, but if you wanted to cute JoJo’s up or make cats way more fabulous, you could definitely do worse.

All Star Battle Demo! Prepare for the Horses!

Games Radar posted a preview of the All Star Battle. We’re getting our first look at real gameplay instead of just style. He may not know the terms or be able to tell the difference between balls and yo-yos, but at least we get to see the game.

It’s looking all right. I’m no great judge of fighting games, so I can only make some preliminary judgments. I would have preferred straight 2D instead of 3D, but I can adapt. That guy kept using “2.5D,” but it looks like regular 3D from here.

The one thing I can say I’m absolutely not interested in is stage hazards. I guess the idea is to add an element of unpredictability to the game, but I don’t like the idea of not being able to rally or losing out on a good combo because I didn’t predict Wham wanting to go for a ride with his vampire horses.  If this ever comes over officially or otherwise, I imagine any stage with hazards being banned from tournaments.

Nerf horses. Nerf, I say!

Assuming there is a stage without them, of course.

The only stage for real men.

I’m still very excited for the game. Even if it ends up being only, “Meh,” I’m still going to play it to pieces so I can horse people in the face as Gyro at all opportunities. So good luck CyberConnect2, and good luck JoJo’s fans.

Rumor Time! JoJo’s All Star Battle for the US?

Again, if you’re into JoJo’s, you may have already gotten a tasty look at this tasty trailer:

It’s being developed by CyberConnect2, the guys who made Asura’s Wrath, though this looks like it’s going to be an actual game and not a movie with button hitting, and will be published by Namco Bandai. Now, as follows with JoJo’s stuff, it’s slated only for Japanese release on the Playstation 3. However, according to this Silicon Era article, Namco Bandai has apparently registered “All Star Battle” as a trademark in the US. Does that mean they plan to release it in the States? My worry about changed names, Metallica becoming Magnet Pudding Monster for instance, screams “No,” but my desire to not have to import a copy of the game where Gyro Zeppleli can ride a horse all over Yoshikage Kira’s face screams “Yes.”

We’ll keep you posted when we find out more assuming that all our time hasn’t been completely absorbed by the aforementioned horse stomping.