For over a decade I pretty much resigned myself to being too busy to squeeze in any anime. As a teenager I loved binging on Naruto and Dragon Ball Z, but adult Lyle was too busy with boring real life to continue watching the shows he loved. That all changed though last year, when my husband and I fell in love with My Hero Academia. The incredibly popular superhero anime just has so much going for it, charming characters, high stakes action, and some seriously emotional moments. Now eight seasons in it’s all come to an end, and what better time to celebrate its legacy with a video game. My Hero Academia: All’s Justice is a love letter to Deku and the gang, and I got to explore a whole host of its modes for this preview.
All’s Justice is, at its core, a 3D fighting game, rather reminiscent of many of the Dragon Ball fighters I’ve played over the years. Every one of the ridiculous number of characters has access to different combos, and more importantly different special quirk attacks. If for some reason you’re reading this preview with no history with the anime, quirks are basically superpowers that many people in the My Hero Academia universe have. Whether you want to play as the exploding badass Bakugo or the berry headed pervert Mineta, you’ll be able to use totally different attacks to overwhelm the opponent.
There’s a lot of back and forth counter-play to get used to in My Hero Academia: All’s Justice, with attacks that break blocks, attacks that break counter attacks, and all manner of complex combos for fighting game veterans to sink their teeth into. By default though us wimps have plenty to enjoy too, with a simplified control scheme that ensures your mad mashing produces some exciting combos.
It wouldn’t be an anime fighter without over the top attacks and ridiculous transformations, and All’s Justice has plenty of that. The various ultimate attacks will remind you of fantastic moments from the show, and are gloriously flashy. You also have a Rising Meter to fill, which you can eventually use to power up your attacks significantly and unlock your most powerful ultimate attack of all. I can’t pretend that in my couple of hours with the game I got used to all the intricacies of the combat, but I had a hell of a lot of fun.
There’s way more to My Hero Academia: All’s Justice than just fighting. The game is made up of loads of different modes to jump into, and I was able to try four of them. Story mode was where I started, which features fully voice acted (with both English and Japanese voices available) scenes from the show alongside battles. There’s a massive sprawling story web you’ll get to explore, and it felt perfect for reliving the epic journey of Deku and his heroic buddies.
For most fighting games the story mode is the main event for single player sessions, but I found Team Up Missions much more entertaining. These take place in a virtual world where the heroes train, which you can explore freely. Getting around involves exciting parkour moves (which use individual quirks) and features loads of standard goons to take on. As the name suggests you’ll take a team of three heroes on the missions in this virtual world, and this gives you plenty of opportunity to test out all your faves and find yourself a compatible fighting buddy.
For more hardcore fans of the anime, Hero’s Diary will be the mode that excites you the most. This mode explores moments between characters that have never been seen before, which basically equates to all new MHA content. One of the scenarios I got to play through was the reunion of Eijiro and Tetsutetsu, who renewed their friendly rivalry from the sports tournament. I can’t wait to see more of my beloved heroes interact in interesting ways, and because of this Hero’s Diary is probably the mode I want to see more of the most.
To finish off my time with All’s Justice I jumped into the standard versus mode against the CPU, who had had set nice and low so I could just have fun playing as the characters I like the most. In the full version of the game this will be playable with friends and online as you’d expect, and if you’re just in the market for a quick scrap it’s the mode for you. I spent a long time trying out different fighters, and was really impressed by how different they all felt.
My Hero Academia: All’s Justice feels like the perfect fighter to celebrate the end of an anime era, and I’m sad I’m not playing the full version already. This visual spectacle has engaging combat, loads of bonus story moments that fans will eat up, and more content than I ever could’ve expected. I know I’ll be going Plus Ultra when the game releases next month, and those missing All Might will want to be there day one.
My Hero Academia: All’s Justice is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox on February 5th.
