Ah, the video game tie-in. A few brilliant games emerged as a result of the somewhat macabre obsession with cross-market synergy in the late 90s to early 00s (like Peter Jackson’s King Kong, or GoldenEye 007, for instance), but the majority of them were, at best, forgettable.
However, as the obsession waned, a younger and trendier opportunist stepped in to take its place: the anime tie-in game. Naturally, games based on anime are not a new phenomenon. They are, however, popping up with increasing frequency – likely due in part to the ever-growing popularity of anime outside of Japan – and one publisher is responsible for the majority of the most popular releases: Bandai Namco. Thanks to its collaboration with the anime publishing giant Shueisha, Bandai Namco holds the licensing rights to the most popular anime and manga titles. Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Gundam, My Hero Academia – if it’s an anime you’ve heard of, Bandai probably has the rights to turn it into a video game.
But just as the majority of movie tie-in games used to be either formulaic first-person shooters or unimaginative third-person action adventure games, nowadays the fixation seems to be on arena fighting games – which, unfortunately, leads us to Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash.
Regrettably, Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash is not only derivative of other arena fighters, but also the embodiment of every pitfall that the genre consistently encounters. Trying to explain the differences between it and other similar anime arena fighters published by Bandai Namco, such as My Hero’s One Justice or One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, is like trying to describe the differences between two slightly different shades of gray. However, there is one significant difference between Cursed Clash and every other arena fighter I’ve played: it is, without a doubt, the worst one so far.
Meanwhile, the other, slightly more promising distinguishing feature between Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash and its fellow arena fighters is the 2v2 aspect of its matchups. While others usually allow you to switch between characters or use them as assists, Cursed Clash instead requires you and your teammate to assist each other simultaneously. In theory, that sounds really intriguing, but in practice, due to the underdeveloped core gameplay, there is no discernible synergy to actually experience.
