Developed by Byking and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, My Hero One’s Justice is an arena fighter akin to the Ultimate Ninja Storm series at its core. You get to choose from a lineup of your favourite heroes and/or villains (I'm just going to use "heroes" from here on), as well as two possible sidekicks on each side, to fight either bots or other players in action-packed brawls.

In essence, the combat system underlying the game is built on a simple, yet solid foundation. Each hero gets their ‘normal’ attacks and combos, which function with a sort of rock-paper-scissors mechanic. Basic attacks are your bread and butter but they are rendered ineffective by counter-attacks, which allow the opposing hero to absorb your punches and kicks before turning the hurt on you. Counter-attacks are, in turn, interrupted by unblockable attacks that ignore the super-armor a counter-attacker would have, and these attacks are made useless by, you guessed it, basic attacks.

In addition to these attacks, each hero has their "quirks" (i.e. superpowers). These qualities are what define and differentiate the heroes, and I have to give the game props here for being true to the anime. These quirks are brought to life in a way that makes it possible for heroes to put up a fight against other heroes they’d canonically be completely outclassed by, however, the issue remains that some characters are still stronger than others. The game seems to heavily favour ranged heroes over melee heroes.

Each hero also has their ultimate attacks, which are generated throughout the match via a bar system a ’la Mortal Kombat X. This bar fills up as you deal and take damage, and has three charges. You can expend this bar for super moves, which climb in power depending on how many charges you’re willing to sacrifice.



For a foundation this simple, it offers a sneaky amount of strategic depth. Against the AI, you’re not going to notice it much because… well… the AI is kind of stupid, but these brawls absolutely just come to life when you’re facing off against other people. You have to think about which attacks to use in which circumstances, and you have to look for proper openings to use your more powerful attacks as they could be blocked and leave you vulnerable to a counter attack.

The character roster somewhat underwhelmed me. You get a total of 20 playable characters, which is objectively passable for a fighter, but given the source material I felt more could be done here. The number of characters available notwithstanding, some of the roster inclusions at the expense of others in the show doesn’t make sense. Muscular, a character that made a single entry in the show is included in the base game, whereas long-running heroes like Endeavour, Gang Orca, or even Nomu are not.

Each accessible character, however, can be customized with a variety of accessories obtainable through earned in-game currency or directly for meeting certain criteria or objectives in the story mode. This is a nice touch, but failed to do much for me. Granted, if this is your jam, you’ll find lots to enjoy with this customization system as these options extend beyond just the clothing of the hero (offering up new voice lines, character motto etc.).

While the character customization often left me with a ridiculous looking hero, the look of the game in general left me with a definitively positive impression. The game has a sleek anime style visual like Ninja Storm, and it works. This translated to combat looking solid, with quirk visuals and characters looking awesome in action. I couldn’t really identify much lacking in the presentation (barring some really lame ultimate animations), but one aspect I’d definitely compliment is the way it tackles environmental destruction.



Often, when a match was finished, the stage looked like it had just hosted a superhero fight and was missing walls and even a roof in most cases. It has absolutely no real or practical implication, but seeing a hero get punched into a wall only for it to shatter as said hero is embedded in it, or seeing the floor break apart after a powerful ultimate, honestly just makes these super brawls feel a little more action-packed and authentic. Unfortunately, the sexiness of the combat does not come without a price. At times, especially when some ultimates were used, the game suffered some pretty noticeable drops in frame rate.

The game’s story itself is delivered in a cool comic-esque style and I found myself enjoying the presentation. However, that enjoyment did not extend to the content of the story itself. Starting halfway into season 2 of the anime, and ending halfway into season 3, the story just struck me as lazy and weird. You finish it as the heroes, then play through it again from the villain's perspective, and after that, you get to play a prequel set way before any of this.

It honestly left me wondering why the developers chose to have the story take place during this specific time frame, and I’m not sure who it’s meant to be for. Newcomers to the series won’t have any idea what’s happening as a ton of backstory has been left out, and people who watched the anime are essentially just going to get a super-summarized version of the same story they’ve already seen. The game has a couple of “what if” missions scattered in the story which focus on side characters as the main characters were doing their thing in the anime, but this doesn’t do much to give us anything new in terms of the overarching narrative.



If you’re still willing to push through the campaign to see what it has to offer, and are a fan of watching your anime in English, then I have some bad news for you. The campaign can only be experienced with the Japanese VA and there is no option to change this. In addition to the campaign, you get a bunch of objective-based missions that you’re able to undertake, in which you can level up the heroes you choose to take less and deal more damage as the fights go on (and you need to as your health carries over from fight to fight). This mode proved to be a pretty entertaining albeit selectively frustrating time.

At the end of the day, My Hero One’s Justice is not perfect. It’s got some flaws it really shouldn’t have. Its story mode is weak, there aren’t as many characters available as I’d have liked, and some ultimates look really lame, but you know what? It’s fun. My friends and I had a blast playing this game against each other, brashly and over-confidently trash-talking all the while (I won of course), just reveling in a game that merrily brought out the worst in us through our love of our favourite mediums. This is the hallmark of a game that’s worth playing. Is it worth it for its full retail price? Maybe, only if you’re a massive fan of the series. Is it worth it on sale? For sure. The game has a lot to offer and I think that, if nothing else, it’s a step in the right direction for anime arena fighters.