Thank you so much for how you treated me this past year. I wish you the absolute best, and hope you will continue being good to me this year.”
So if you happen to have a JoJo fan friend that would like to greet the New Years by forgetting how to dance slowly with their college sweetheart, then Araki has your back.
Much faster. Maybe someone put these up early last week and I just never noticed until yesterday, but we now have a Nico video of the fights from today’s stream. [Edit 1: And also two YouTube videos now] This includes the Quarter and Semi final fights meaning that we are now in the finals. The last match will take place a week from today on ASB Launch Day.
I know the AI matches aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but these are actually not bad matches outside a few of the normal hiccups. No one can pass through Star Platinum’s Impenetrable Wall of Fists, and Kakyoin and Johnny continue to shoot like the CPU can’t decide if it wants them on auto-fire, but the exchanges are a lot more active. Dio manages to put the hamper on Kakyoin by warping to him. He’s up against the green stone wall with Kakyoin both shooting and effectively trapping him, but once he turns it around with his Knife Heat, he rallies like a train. That knife super really hurts.
Jotaro vs. Koichi has some decent exchanges, though it takes more than half of Koichi’s life bar to get there. You will hear more ORAORA than you have ever heard before, but once Koichi manages to get in, there’s some decent back and forth. It helps that watching Star Platinum’s grab where he holds the opponent up by the scruff of their neck and then hurls them into the ground is very satisfying.
Dio vs. Caeser was probably the best one, though. The speed, the fuck your projectiles attitude that Dio has, the time stop. It was nice. Dio stoms all over Caeser, but it’s nice to see their close up exchanges early on in the fight. The time stop is a good showing. They handled very well the way that it works with the opponent moving normally as their being hit but freezing after the damage animation is over. Good detailing.
And thus it comes down to the touch of destiny. The finals will be Jotaro vs. Dio for the crown of the JoJo’s Throne. The final match and the game itself run a week from now. You can also look forward to a video of the whole stream officially from NamcoBandai probably somewhere between Friday and Tuesday. I’ve heard there are some more fun host shenanigans.
[Edit 2]
There’s the shenanigans. The beginning part is them using Johnathan to show off Customize Mode, specifically the placing of sound effects. It looks like we won’t be able to make our own clouds. You have a set list of words/sounds you can pick from and can mess with their dimensions however you like. No covering Johnathan in 「ゴゴゴゴゴ」 it would seem, though that one is probably one you can pick form the list.
There are two bonus player “fights.” I say “fights” like that because these are being used for specific demoing of moves and features. Not that that’s a bad thing. You get to see Johnathan’s alternate outfit as inspired by that one manga cover as well as a few combos from him and Part 1 Dio. The big showing, though, is our first look at calling Stairway and C-Moon. The way it works in gameplay is sort of like King Crimson in the Part 5 game seemingly without a time limit. Pucci and Stairway move at normal speed where the opponent moves at something like half speed. They can presumably fight back, but they are offensively gimped. It’s the reward for the difficulty of pulling it off. On top of being a giant target while doing that floating away, you also have to build the Green Baby meter up to call C-Moon in the first place. Pucci does have a move to build it, and C-Moon does persist between matches, so I see it being used for claiming match point if it doesn’t end up being too cumbersome.
So this is what everyone was praising so much. Yeah, it’s pretty good. I’m always up for jazzy music like this. The visual in the very beginning part with all the protagonists is fantastic. It is as though they watched the anime OPs and said, “We can do that. We already have the models anyway!” The style is emulated pretty well and looks very good. I do love the little detail that Tusk opens the way to the next part of the intro by prying open the walls just like in Johnny’s fight with Valentine. Joseph twirling the JoJo Crackers is always fun. Giorno gets a little glossed over. He’s there with his pose, and then suddenly Jolyne. The intro of the main villains is pretty nice. Seven over all, meaning that Dio gets to go twice, and the darker colors spilling in was a really nice aesthetic touch. And then it’s just everyone kicking some ass. Not a bad way to do it.
I know this isn’t the highest quality version just yet. I’ll replace it if another one comes along or if this one gets taken down. Ten more days, and a lot of you may just have the ability to watch it whenever you want. I take it anticipation is high right now.
(Thanks for mentioning the video in the comments, SStefania)
I assumed you guys would be interested in knowing what they were saying. It helps me out. I didn’t know what it was JoJolion Josuke was doing during his Grand Heat, but the friction stealing is cool. Okuyasu calling Giorno names makes way more sense than insulting his topknot that he totally has. His classic style “uurrryyy” is also a nice touch.
Yeah, that’s the way to do it. Can we agree that we’re coming into ASB with a little “who’d win in a fight” mentality? The moment Mista and Hol Horse were both set to be in the game, I was thinking about who has the better gun stand. But the stand out rivalry is obviously the all out cage match of Cherries vs. Cheese.
The gameplay that we got to see with the main showcase characters, Johnny, Johnathan, Will, and JoJolion Josuke are pretty interesting. I was wrong about what move I thought would be the On Fire Fist, but we knew it would be there. Zoom punch got my attention because it looks like it sticks for a second instead of retracting immediately. If it does, it could be really awesome for anti-air because an opponent could misjudge the time and still jump into it. Will also has it, so I await my match where we sit across the ring just doing that at each other.
Johnny looks like he’s either going to be the character that’s really hard to use because of his very limited movement when not on Slow Dancer but very rewarding if you can handle him or the character that caters to spamming because he’s going to be projectile heavy. That does follow; his power was shooting his fingernails, but I don’t want that to mean he’ll be the back-up-and-shoot-you character.
JoJolion Josuke I think is going to be the trap/counter character with that all based around the soap bubble. I’ve got to give CC2 some credit for what they used for his moves because you see him using a bunch of soap bubbles as a barrier around his body like the shaving scene. He also does that at a distance, but I’m mostly interested in when the screen goes black. That specific bubble will steal the players’ “eyes” by blacking the screen so whoever’s JoJolion Josuke can get a free hit. That’s going to be really hard to use for human player because it blanks the screen, but there may be more to it than what’s in the PV.
Oh, and Kira. He has Sheer Heart Attack, but that’s all they’re telling us. I figured he would also be a counter/trap character because of the way Another One Bites the Dust works and all the bombs, but it’s not in the PV. At this point, I think we can be clear that Kira is DLC only. The way he’s rolled in with the Hayato Memo Book and the specific mention of PSN in the text on the still intro page (edit: and that he’s listed as such on the official character page.) You gotta buy him extra. If you don’t want to mess with getting foreign DLC, you might want to import fast.
I must have just never payed attention when Tusk Act 1 was around because I didn’t remember half the details on it like the frosting nozzle it has for a nose.
We also have much easier to see shots of the moves previewed in the V-Jump spread.
“Zoom Punch”
I think this is the opening of the” On Fire Fist,” but it might just be the move where Johnathan fucks you up.
The “Frog Punch,” except the frog is your intestines.
The “Psyche, Stronza!” where Zeppeli pretends he’ll give you the Ripple, but he’s actually just hitting you.
Tusk Act 2’s standard ultra move.
Tusk Act 3, the power up ultra move.
Tusk Act 4, the Ultra Tour with backup dancing by Slow Dancer
Finally, we’ve got a couple new environments.
Dio’s Throne Room and Balcony. Please refrain from lighting any body parts with the balcony torches.
The Funny Valentine Final Battle Site in New Jersey. Danger: Bear.
These are some beautifully crafted environments. With the Jersey one, I might forgive the stage hazards if the bears are the stage hazards. Just imaging Josuke launching an Kira backwards into a bear, then bear launches Kira back into one of Josuke’s ultras. Then the bear shapeshifts back into Mikitaka Hazekura and they bro-fist. I think you can see why I might be on board with that.
Man, I don’t remember Tusk being that pink. I always thought Tusk was a blue and gray color set and would look more mechanical, but I also thought Stone Free would be green, so what do I know?
You can see a few of Tusk’s different forms in use. Act 4 all the way on the right looks like it’s part of a scene, so it may be Ultra Only, but Act 3 is being used in standard combat. That might mean it’s a power up Ultra or maybe Johnny will be able to upgrade his strength over the course of a match. If you’ve ever played Marvel vs. Capcom 3, think of Frank West’s leveling up skill.
Not too much for Johnathan and Will, though that one picture of Johnathan looks like he’s going to fuck someone up. There was a translation of the last spread floating around somewhere and Johnathan’s best ultra is supposed to be the On Fire Fist. That picture is probably him gearing up for it. Will just gets to be in the bottom, but maybe we’ll get another spread where it’s Johnny and Will up top and Johnathan at the bottom so all the characters have gone in a full circle. Or we could just get another full Famitsu article with all the pictures of everything. That’d be good too.
Look who’s here. I knew that Johnny was going to be in this, but it’s good to see him on magazine paper riding Slow Dancer. It’s hard to see because of the glare, but right next to him you can see him getting ready to fire a fingernail bullet as what looks like part of an ultra. Since it shows him on Slow Dancer, I’m not sure if he’ll have a move to be on horseback like we’ve seen with Gyro, and if he does, whether or not this will be the way for him to use Tusk Act 4. Maybe it’ll be like Giorno and act like a power up ultra.
His confirmation along side Will Zeppeli and Johnathan means that we are going to get our intercontinuity showdowns. Who was the best mentor Zeppeli: Will or Gyro? Who was the best Caeser: Caeser or Caeser but the other one? What is stronger: Stretchy Arms (And man look at that Zoom Punch) or Fingernails powered by vegetables? We can finally know the answers.
Speculation aside, it’s good to see these characters on board. Johnathan and Will will have the same voices from The Animation, and Johnny will be voiced by Yuki Kaji. These magazine spreads have always been followed by a Famitsu special article, so look forward to that and hopefully a new PV soon.
(Thanks to Yaraon for posting the original picture. Thanks to Drakonia Tumblr for the higher quality scan)
A little bit in, but no less a good time to get an official greeting from one of those guys we might be fans of. Araki put out this little New Years card, and the official site notes it is specifically designed to be used as such. To that end, the greeting is basic. There’s part of the second line I can’t read, but it goes something like:
One Pixel Jump 