Jump Ultimate Stars
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This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it. |
Have you ever wanted a game in which you could grab Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star and use him to kick the shit out of Goku from Dragonball Z? Or in which the JUST AS PLANNED guy from Death Note could fight Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure? How about a fight in which that dude from One Piece with the rubbery body gets in a fight to the death with some from Bleach or Naruto?
All these matchups and more are possible, and the game is called Jump Ultimate Stars.
Overview[edit | edit source]
Jump Ultimate Stars is what would happen if you got the license for dozens (if not hundreds) of manga works, and used them to create a Smash Bros. style fightan game wherein the objective is to kick the shit out of one another.
Yes, it's exactly as good as it sounds, if you can put aside the obvious weeaboo and animu nonsense.
The game has a huge level of customization and a metric fuckton of characters, support characters, and different ways to deal with given foes, making it surprisingly deep for such a simple fighting game. It's also quite possibly the only game of its genre worth two shits on a portable console (it's for the Nintendo DS). Supports up to 4-player online fighting for free-for-alls and teams alike. And with Wi-Fi, no less, which is rare because Nintendo's noted for being tards when connectivity is involved.
The bitter irony is that in spite of the sheer demand for a game like this (and it's amazingly good for what it is), it can never, ever, be released outside Japan. Why? Because the copyrights for the English versions for all the characters are held by different companies, so translating it would require buying copyrights MULTIPLE TIMES.
Verboten[edit | edit source]
Licensing in Japan works differently than it does in the USA. Whereas Japan issues licenses for works with enough leeway for developers to work on different projects without overlap, in the USA, signed-in-blood agreements that are wholly inviolable without massive legal action are the norm. What this generally means is that a developer overseas can produce under multiple studios with no ill effects, but one stateside is ball-and-chained to one studio trying to keep the IP all to itself. The problem arises when various studios have been used over time to produce multiple IPs all held by the same owner, as is the case for JUS.
Shonen Jump owns the IP for all the various works in JUS, but has, over time, used hundreds of developers to release its games stateside. Capcom released the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure games, for example, but Bandai did DBZ and Koei did Fist of the North Star. The end result is that Jump Ultimate Stars is a legal firestorm of biblical proportions, and that because of it, it will never see release outside of Japan.
....At least, not officially.
/v/ gets shit done[edit | edit source]
In a rare moment of /v/ getting its shit together, a translated ROM of Jump Ultimate Stars has been released onto the Interwebs. Because JUS cannot be imported and cannot technically be sold in the United States, there are no sales to be lost and the ROM falls into that rare category of a ROM implicitly approved by its developer in an attempt to bring it to an audience that otherwise would have no idea of its existence.
Kind of inspiring, really.
/tg/ Throws Its Hat In the Ring[edit | edit source]
Several DMs ran campaigns in BESM based on this premise, taking it to its logical conclusion. Considerable win and stupid resulted. In retrospect this was inevitable from the moment the concept came to light.
Download Link[edit | edit source]
Here. LINK DEAD, CURSE YOU COPYRIGHT!