Shueisha Games Review – Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions
On July 28, Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions released on the Nintendo Switch. Published by Shueisha Games, a new game development team by Shonen Jump publisher Shueisha, the game features characters from various Shonen Jump+ series, as well as a brand new original character, in a strategy RPG setting.
Plot: You play as Damien, a half-French half-Japanese ten-year-old animé and manga fan that recently moved with his family from France to Japan after his grandfather died to take care of his grandmother. Unfortunately, Damien doesn't like that he had to leave everyone and everything he knew behind, so to cope with this he delves into his imagination and sees himself as the space exploring title character Captain Velvet Meteor.
His mission is to explore an unknown planet that he crash-landed on and team up with various heroes who were also brought to the planet to stop an alien force from taking over, while in the real world he learns that change is inevitable.
A simple plot, but it works for Shueisha's first game.
Characters: As mentioned, you play as Damien AKA Captain Velvet Meteor and his sidekick, a small robot (robot vacuum in the real world) named Jay-P. Along the way on his journey Damien meets with eight heroes from Shonen Jump+.
Hibino Kafka from Monster #8
Princess & EX from Tis Time For "Torture", Princess
Chrome from Heart Gear
Slime from Slime Life
Gabimaru from Hell's Paradise
Kofune Ushio from Summer Time Rendering
Chloé Love & Kai Iod from Ghost Reaper Girl
Loid Forger from Spy x Family
Unfortunately these are the only ten characters in the game, meaning other characters from the eight Jump+ series, as well as Damien's own family, don't appear at all outside of being referenced. This comes off as disappointing because this means you don't get to fight any of the villains from these series, like Kaiju No. 9, Rien, Haine, or even Donovan Desmond. The bosses of the game kind of make up for this by being themed based on each character's series, examples being a dog kaiju for Kafka's level, a rogue machine for Chrome's level, and a shadowy humanoid cockroach for Ushio's level.
In terms of characterization, the Jump characters are exactly how you see them in their respective manga series. Damien on the other hand…I really wish he was a better character, both character-wise and design-wise.
Character-wise, Damien is annoying. As mentioned about the plot, Damien and his family moved from France to Japan after his grandfather died to help take care of his widowed grandmother. Throughout the story Damien is a brat about all of this, even going as far as to see his father as the devil in the opening cutscene just because he had to move. What makes it worse is that the reason why they had to move to Japan in the first would be something Damien's parents would have told him because of how important it is, so it's not like they moved on a whim.
Damien eventually does learn to accept all of the changes in his life, but with how the game is set up, it feels like it drags to get to that character development.
Design-wise, Damien doesn't really fit the style. While all of the other characters obviously have the animé/manga style, Damien looks like he's rip straight from a French cartoon like Code Lyoko or Totally Spies and it doesn't mesh well with the other characters. He also has these two really weird facial expressions that pop up from time to time.
One is what I call the "obsessed fanboy smile" and if you've ever seen the Spongebob Squarepants episode where Spongebob meets Kevin the Sea Cucumber, that's pretty much what it is. It also doesn't help that, despite being an animé and manga fan (with a Spy x Family poster on his bedroom wall), Damien is not actually fanboying over these characters he's meeting, which in a way is understandable since they're figments of his imagination so the smile just comes off as creepy.
The other facial expression happens whenever you start a level, where right before Damien goes into his imaginary world he looks like he's seen the most disturbing thing ever despite the fact that it's usually very mundane.
As Captain Velvet Meteor, he definitely needed a better design since his uniform is nothing more than a red onesie. Keep in mind that he's ten. That's too old for someone to be wearing a onesie.
As for Jay-P, he was actually a good character, despite being a floor vacuum. He was actually more likable than Damien.
Gameplay: The game is a grid-based strategy RPG that is broken up into nine levels; a prologue level to help you get used to the gameplay and eight levels for you eight party members…and I say party members loosely, as you can only team up with the Jump characters in their respective levels. This adds to the strategy element, as having more than just Damien and one Jump Hero would allow players to brute force the maps.
In terms of the levels themselves, there's actually a level selection of sorts. Six of the levels you can do in any order, but you always have to do Kafka and Loid's levels first and last respectively. After completing Kafka's level, Damien's mom will text him a list of chores she wants him to do and these chores are what lead you into the levels; Eat breakfast (Princess' level), brush your teeth (Ushio's level), do the laundry (Chrome's level), check the mailbox (Slime's level), turn on lights in the atelier (Chloé's level), and burn incense (Gabimaru's level). Once you've completed all of the chores, Loid's level will be unlocked.
Surprisingly, despite being allowed to play the levels in any order, there does seem to be an order you're supposed to play them in. Despite the order of the chores you're given, both Damien's spaceship and the game's soundtrack has the level order as Princess, Chrome, Slime, Gabimaru, Ushio, and Chloé. I believe this is the order you should do instead of the chores list order, as Ushio and Chloé's levels felt like late game difficulty compared to some of the other levels.
When you're actually in the levels you have you're basic grid movement system, with characters only being able to move four spaces at a time, but you can earn extra movement points be defeating enemies. More on combat in a bit.
One thing this game definitely needed was a rotating camera. Maps are unfortunately on an angle, where you are either moving northeast or southeast to reach the goal. The problem with this is, depending on how the map is displayed your movement can get messed up. Let's say you want to go up, so you tilt the left analog stick up. Instead of going up though, you're going to the right. Movement controls are shifted in this, with up being right, right being down, down being left, and left being up, and that messed me up quite few times while playing. I feel that if this game had a rotating camera similar to the Disgaea series would have rectified that problem.
Combat is simple, move you characters over towards the enemies, making sure to use the right analog stick to aim, and attack. Most enemies will go down in one hit, while other will need a few and some will even have shields that need to be destroyed before you can take them down. There are also smaller enemies that look like swarms that you can just step over and they'll be killed. Due this often so you can focus your attacks on the bigger enemies.
Killing enemies will reward you with three things and lots of them depending on how many enemies you kill in one turn; health, movement points, and power orbs. The first two are self-explanatory, but power orbs are necessary to use Power Combos. Damien is able to use normal combos and Power Combos with the Jump heroes, both of which are needed to progress though the maps. For example, in Gabimaru's level you need to use his normal combo to set fire to the plants that block your progress. Power Combos, as the name suggests, is an even stronger attack than the normal combos, being able one-shot even some of the bigger enemies. Power Combos are also the only way you can hurt some of the bosses in the game.
Extras: There are three collectables in the game, two of which are found in the levels and one in the overworld. In the levels you can collect music notes from treasure chests that unlock music in the soundtrack and blue stars by completing optional missions in certain levels. Blue stars only go towards completion and do unlock anything. There are two music notes per level and all levels but Loid's have two optional missions each, while Loid's has three.
In the overworld, stickers based on the characters and enemies in the game are hidden and can be found to play a bingo game. Completing a row or column in bingo, four rows and four columns, will unlock boss rematches that will give the remaining eight blue stars upon beating them a second time.
Score: Overall I would give this game an 8 out of 10. It's a fun game worth playing despite the lack of a rotating camera and Damien himself and I hope this is the first of many games from Shueisha Games. With how good this game was I look forward to what else Shueisha can do with their IPs. Maybe one day, should Namco lose the licenses or they work with Shueisha Games, we can see what Shueisha Games can do with the likes of Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, My Hero Academia, or even Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.