My Hero Academia (also known as Boku no Hero Academia) is one of the most popular animes out there. It was only a matter of time for a game based on Kōhei Horikoshi’s to be released on consoles. My Hero One’s Justice is a 3D fighting game scheduled for an August 23rd release for PC, Xbox One, Switch and PS4. I had the opportunity to play a demo at Bandai Namco’s booth at E3 2018.

The demo was short, limited to a versus mode either against a fellow player or the CPU. I played a couple of rounds against the computer, as well as a few rounds against fellow journalist Bernardo Dabul from Brazilian website 10de10.

The best thing I can say about this demo and most certainly the game as a whole, is its visuals. The game nails its anime aesthetics with excellent cel-shaded visuals, lots of colors and visual effects. Every single menu is stylized in a manga style just like Persona 5. There’s no way to deny the fact My Hero One’s Justice has a ton of style, but the demo did not showcase a lot of substance.

One thing I was worried about with My Hero One’s Justice, was if it was going to be yet another Bandai Namco 3D anime fighter, just like J-Stars or its various Naruto or DBZ games (besides FighterZ, of course). While not exactly the same type of 3D fighter, since the arenas are a lot smaller and the combat is a lot more focused on close-quarter battles, I wasn’t very impressed with this game’s overall gameplay. The game still feels a little bit slow and the combat is still a bit confusing. The lack of a tutorial or difficulty choice (it’s an E3 demo, that’s totally understandable) took a toll on my overall enjoyment, as the controls feature a ton of different types of moves and combos to be learned on the fly.

My biggest gripe with the overall gameplay, however, was its recovery system. Your character takes an immense amount of time to get back on his/her feet after being attacked by the opponent. Suffice to say, your character turns into one big punching bag whenever he/she gets knocked to the ground. You don’t see this in other anime fighters from Bandai Namco, as they’re usually pretty fast-paced and for the most part, balanced (as long as you don’t pick Mr. Satan in a DBZ game).

My Hero One’s Justice‘s demo was… okay. The game’s visuals and overall style are great, but the game still needs a fair amount of polishing in its gameplay department. The combat is still a bit unbalanced and needs to be fixed. Despite these issues and keeping in mind I haven’t had access to the full roster or any of the other modes, I can see this game becoming a hit among My Hero Academia fans, but I don’t see it turning newcomers into fans of the series.