Jump Super Stars



Jump Super Stars is a 2-D fighting game for the Nintendo DS published by Nintendo in Japan in 2005. It gathers many of the popular characters from Weekly Shonen Jump in a Super Smash Bros-style battle royale. In most stages, your objective is to simply knock out your opponents more often than they KO you, either by depleting their Hit Points or knocking them off the stage. However, some missions require you to collect the most/all of a certain item, and a few (and many unlock goals in otherwise normal stages) have more unusual goals.

The unique feature of Jump Super Stars is how a team is built. Each character has from 1-8 koma (manga panels), each of a different size and shape. The touch screen has a 5 x 4 grid to place koma on, and the koma you place there form your deck. The size of each koma determines if it is a help (1 panel; provides a bonus to adjacent characters), support (2-3 panels; performs a single attack) or battle character (4+ panels; the playable characters). You must have one of each type of koma in your deck. Most fighting is done with the basic buttons, but using support characters, switching battle characters and activating some special attacks require touching the appropriate koma, while the battle takes place on the upper screen.

In 2006, a sequel, Jump Ultimate Stars was released. In addition to adding game modes and many new characters, each fighter got at least two basic attacks and a powerful finisher. The unlock system was also much improved; you earned points during battle, which you could spend to unlock characters, stages or other features. You could also play online via Nintendo WiFi Connection.

In 2009, a Spiritual Successor of sorts was made, Sunday VS Magazine Shuuketsu Choujou Daikessen, with another set of manga characters from Shueshias's rivals, Kodansha and Shogakukan.

Manga represented in this series:
 * Black Cat
 * Bleach
 * Bobobobo Bobobo
 * Busou Renkin
 * Captain Tsubasa (Ultimate Stars only)
 * D.Gray-man
 * Death Note
 * Doctor Slump
 * Dragon Ball
 * Eyeshield 21
 * Fist of the North Star (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Gintama
 * Hell Teacher Nube (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Hikaru no Go (Super Stars only)
 * Houshin Engi (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Hunter X Hunter
 * Ichigo One Hundred Percent
 * Is (Ultimate Stars'' only)
 * Manga/Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure / Steel Ball Run (these series were treated separately in Super Stars, but between both games Hirohiko Araki had retconned SBR into JoJo's continuity, so they were united in Ultimate Stars)
 * Jungle King Tar Chan (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Kinnikuman (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Koen Mae Hashutsujo
 * Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Midori No Makibaou (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Mr. Fullswing (Super Stars only)
 * Muhyo and Roji (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Naruto
 * Ninku (Ultimate Stars only)
 * One Piece
 * The Prince of Tennis
 * Pyu To Fuku Jaguar
 * Reborn!
 * Rokudenashi Blues (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Rurouni Kenshin
 * Saint Seiya (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Sakigake Otokojuku (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Shaman King
 * Slam Dunk
 * Space Adventure Cobra (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Taizo Mote King Saga (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Tottemo Luckyman (Ultimate Stars only)
 * Yu-Gi-Oh!
 * Yu Yu Hakusho

Many of the character-specific tropes (such as Big Eater and Cloudcuckoolander) from these series also appear in this game as well.

Tropes present in this series:

 * AI Roulette: The AI will usually throw out attacks at random, never comboing, using Supports in completely useless situations, failing to block moves that have to charge up for several seconds, walking straight into a pit (especially when afflicted with most status effects), and spamming useless "touch" attacks over and over, among other things.
 * Asskicking Pose: In some cases (such as with Jotaro), it has a special effect, such as restoring SP.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Ichigo, Naruto and Luffy's 8 koma forms. They've got impressive special attacks, but all of them come out very slowly, making them harder to land. Their 7 koma specials are much quicker and to the point.
 * Also, Kenshiro 7 in Ultimate Stars. If the attack connects, it's sure to throw your opponent far away, but 1. you must be just next to him/her so it can connect (it is a short-range radial attack), and 2. Kenshiro takes long enough to load that he may get hit and break the attack.
 * Dio Brando's 5-Koma version can pull off the infamous 'Road Roller' move, but it's useless compared to his 6-Koma version's Time Stop ability (").
 * Boring but Practical: Ringouts.
 * Charged Attack: Certain characters' taunts will charge attacks to make them more effective - Train Heartnet can fire more bullets at once after his, for example.
 * Allen Walker's Arm Cannon is a more traditional Charged Attack. When charged, it fires five bolts at once.
 * Yusuke's Spirit Gun (the normal and air versions) do a bit more damage and knock down opponents. You can also hold the finisher buttons to charge his big shots.
 * Cherry Tapping: A few of the taunts do 1 damage.
 * Combination Attack: Jump Super Stars let you combine two character's attacks, sometimes getting unique attacks such as Naruto and Goku's Rasengan/Genki-Dama. Jump Ultimate Stars lets you do a successive combination attack, where each playable character does a small melee attack followed up by the initiator launching one of their special attacks.
 * Some of the attacks are... bizarre. Like Kakashi and Gintoki teaming up and recovering health and earning a victory point by reading porn. Or Sanji and Kazuki using their "seduction" techniques as a form of recovery (notably, when Kazuki tried it in his series, it didn't work).
 * Continuity Porn
 * Crisis Crossover:  is stirring up trouble in the Jump universe, and it's up to the player to bring all of the available Weekly Shonen Jump heroes and heroines together to fight this threat.
 * Double Jump: All characters - certain characters can innately triple jump, and others can get the ability with the right helpers.
 * Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Power beats Knowledge beats Laughter beats Power
 * Escort Mission
 * Extremity Extremist: A few characters only punch, while Lenalee and Sanji only use kicks; there is a "Kickers" deck in JUS built around these two.
 * Fake Difficulty: When setting the AI to "Hard" mode (as if it made any difference, see AI Roulette above) it will automatically assume a guarding stance immediately after you press any attack button.
 * Additionally, some missions require you to finish your opponents with either a Special attack or a Support Character. This is VERY HARD to do in some stages where the opponent keeps falling off (That is, FALLING OFF ENTIRELY ON THEIR OWN and not being thrown/punched/kicked/kamehamehadokened/etc. off) the stage thanks to the aforementioned Artificial Stupidity and either coming back with full health (you have to weaken them again before using said move to finish) or dying (making the mission unwinnable).
 * The Fake Difficulty in these cases doesn't really lie in beating your opponents, but in accomplishing every set of conditions for every mission.
 * Fragile Speedster: Rukia, Killua, most knowledge characters in general
 * Grid Inventory: deck building. Even worse in Jump Super Stars when you had to create the koma via a Inventory Management Puzzle.
 * I Know Madden Kombat: any characters from sports manga, though all who can get a piece of the action only act as strikers.
 * Intercontinuity Crossover: As if having so many Jump characters in one game wasn't enough, some characters gain a small bonus when paired up with characters from other series, like Yugi Mutou and Bo-Bobo.
 * That's more of a brick joke, to clarify, because Yugi appeared in one chapter of the manga as Bobobo's finishing move, and that came from Yugi's artist drawing a picture of Yugi popping out from Bobobo's afro.
 * Jack of All Stats: Goku, Naruto and Luffy.
 * Kamehame Hadoken
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: The koma in question are culled directly from the original manga, and they do contain spoilers (Sakuragi 3, for example, is the very last panel in the whole Slam Dunk story). Arguably, some characters' mere inclusion counts. (or do you think it's just coincidence that they decided to include Aizen, Gin and Tousen in the game at the same time?)
 * Mad Scientist: The Big Bad is.
 * Marth Debuted in Smash Bros: Several of the manga series weren't released outside of Japan before Jump Super Stars was released. In fact, given the sheer number of series featured in the game that have since been translated, it's possible that this was deliberately invoked.
 * Mascot Fighter
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover
 * Medium Awareness: The characters literally fight in a manga page, with the Weekly Shonen Jump logo in the corner.
 * Mighty Glacier: Raoh, Edajima, Bo-Bobo, among others.
 * The Missingno: The Black koma. It can only be unlocked by using an Action Replay or similar, but it grants infinite SP.
 * Mr. Exposition: Aside from the Jump Pirate (the logo of Shonen Jump), each series in Ultimate Stars has an unlockable one to explain everything in the menus. Among them Bulma, Tsunade, Chopper, Lin and Botan.
 * Mythology Gag: All over the place. Every single move performed by every single character is a reference to an action done sometime, somewhere, in their respective manga.
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: It's possible to actually break the walls, which are actually the borders of the "manga" page. Knocking someone out the side literally kicks them out of the manga, resulting in a knockout.
 * Plank Gag: One of Gintoki's attacks. The attack might be based on chapter 9 of Gintama (where he has to fix a customer's roof while the Shinsengumi are after him), but the actual gag doesn't happen there.
 * Pop Quiz
 * Popularity Power: More popular series like Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, etc. have more playable characters and 7 and 8-koma characters.
 * Power Creep, Power Seep: Made worse by larger-koma characters being more powerful.
 * More precisely one just have to wonder how Ryotsu from the decades-long popular Kochikame who is just a regular police officer can even land a hit on monsters like Visored Ichigo, Gear 2nd/3rd Luffy and Kyuubi Naruto, or even more ridiculous against characters who can easily destroy planets or subdue Gods, Vegetto and Sagittarius Seiya respectively.
 * Let's not even begin talking about cute girls falling from the sky or tripping over those aforementioned guys.
 * Practical Taunt: Some characters' taunts have special effects; for example, Eve gets a super jump.
 * Shout-Out: You can actually replicate Yugi coming out of Bobobo's afro thing from the manga.
 * Skip of Innocence: One of Misa Amane's supports has her doing this. If an opponent attacks her, Rem appears and inflicts the death timer effect on them.
 * The Smurfette Principle: Perhaps owing to its shounen roots, there are very few female characters. Ultimate Stars, counting the help koma, has 68 female characters out of over 300 (and that's counting characters who share koma sets), which amounts to around 20% of the total. And, out of the 55 fighters, we have nine (16% total): Arale, Anna, Eve, Kagura, Lenalee, Nami, Robin, Rukia and Sakura.
 * The Ichigo 100% and I"s koma sets somewhat avert this, since their character roster combined is 90% female (only two characters in the former are male).
 * Spam Attack
 * Speech Bubbles: Noteworthy in that some of them, like Kenshiro's "You're Already Dead/Omae wa mou shinde iru" speech, can affect your opponents.
 * Standard Status Effects: Poison, Burn, Paralyze, Blindness, Confused, Frozen, Slow, Doom.
 * Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: Each player and support character is categorized into three types: Strength (red), Humor (yellow), and Intelligence (green). Understanding how they cancel each other out is crucial to progress within the game: powerful characters cause more damage to intelligent characters, who do more damage to funny characters, who cause more damage to the powerful ones (this also applies to the damage assist characters - the ones who take up two to three koma - can cause). Note that the same character may be represented by different types according to their koma. For example, there are two Dio 5 that can be obtained: one is power-type (The One With... the steamroller), while the other is knowledge-type. Knowing which one to put in your koma grid is important.
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change: The quiz questions about the manga in question in Jump Ultimate Stars - fortunately, it's only necessary once, and you can fail every question without penalty.
 * Wall Jump Again, some characters have this as an innate ability and anyone can have it given the right koma.
 * Written Sound Effect: It's a game about manga. What do you expect?