Courageous Baka
Smash Apprentice
If you don't know what it is, it's like Anime Smash Bros. It's a 2D platform fighter featuring over 300 characters from manga/anime apart of Weekly Shonen Jump. It released back in 2006 for the Nintendo DS and is the sequel to Jump Super Stars, which released in the preceding year. All your favorite Shonen Jump characters are here from Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, YuYu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Hunter x Hunter, Saint Seiya, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Fist of the North Star, Shaman King, D.Gray-man, Black Cat, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Buso Renkin, Gintama, and much more!
Now what makes this game so unique is the Koma System. You use this system to make decks of manga panels that you use to fight. Each Koma represents a different manga panel featuring the character it's for from that person's manga. They have different shapes and sizes, but the max amount of spaces that one can take up is 8 spaces on a 4x5 grid. There are three types of Komas: Battle, Support, and Help. Battle Komas, which take up 4 to 8 spaces, are the actual characters you use to fight. The higher the Koma means the more health, the flashier and stronger the two special attacks, and sometimes a transformation (Ex. Goku at Level 6 becomes a Super Saiyan and Luffy at Level 7 uses Gear Second). Support Komas are your assist characters who show up on screen, do one action, and then leave. They take up 2 to 3 spaces on the grid. Help Komas, which take up only 1 space on the grid and must be attached to a Battle Koma, can give your character special abilities like slow health regeneration, air dashing, triple jumping, or immunity to certain status ailments like Freeze and Paralysis. You need at least one of each koma type to make a deck, but from there the only limits are the sizes of the komas you put. You can make solo decks with a lot of supports and/or helps, 4 man decks that ignore supports and helps for the most part, and more balanced 2 or 3 man decks. Battle and Support Komas also come in one of 3 natures: Power, Knowledge, and Laughter. Think of it as a Rock-Paper-Scissors system in which Power characters/special attacks deal extra damage to Knowledge characters, Knowledge characters/special attacks deal extra damage to Laughter characters, and you know what comes next.
This system adds a deep layer of strategy and uniqueness as to what would have probably just been another Smash clone without it. And with the fact that there are over 300 characters (About 50 of which are actually playable), there is so much replayability as you create countless decks using your favorite manga characters. And that's just a small taste of what this game has to offer. The sad thing is that the online is down now and the computers themselves never really pose a challenge, even on the hardest difficulty.
I wish I could have gotten the chance to play this game when the online was available. Sigh. Well anyways, any of you ever heard about this game or played it yourself?
If you want to know what my favorite deck is, it's down below.
1. Luffy (One Piece) - 5 Koma
2. Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin) - 5 Koma
3. Kurama (YuYu Hakusho) - 5 Koma
4. Nami (One Piece) - 2 Koma
5. Kakashi (Naruto) - 1 Koma; Attached to Luffy and makes him take less damage from special attacks
6. Kuwabara (YuYu Hakusho) - 1 Koma; Attached to Luffy and increases his SP Gauge when attacking or blocking
7. Urahara (Bleach) - 1 Koma; Attached to Kenshin and lets him air dash
Now what makes this game so unique is the Koma System. You use this system to make decks of manga panels that you use to fight. Each Koma represents a different manga panel featuring the character it's for from that person's manga. They have different shapes and sizes, but the max amount of spaces that one can take up is 8 spaces on a 4x5 grid. There are three types of Komas: Battle, Support, and Help. Battle Komas, which take up 4 to 8 spaces, are the actual characters you use to fight. The higher the Koma means the more health, the flashier and stronger the two special attacks, and sometimes a transformation (Ex. Goku at Level 6 becomes a Super Saiyan and Luffy at Level 7 uses Gear Second). Support Komas are your assist characters who show up on screen, do one action, and then leave. They take up 2 to 3 spaces on the grid. Help Komas, which take up only 1 space on the grid and must be attached to a Battle Koma, can give your character special abilities like slow health regeneration, air dashing, triple jumping, or immunity to certain status ailments like Freeze and Paralysis. You need at least one of each koma type to make a deck, but from there the only limits are the sizes of the komas you put. You can make solo decks with a lot of supports and/or helps, 4 man decks that ignore supports and helps for the most part, and more balanced 2 or 3 man decks. Battle and Support Komas also come in one of 3 natures: Power, Knowledge, and Laughter. Think of it as a Rock-Paper-Scissors system in which Power characters/special attacks deal extra damage to Knowledge characters, Knowledge characters/special attacks deal extra damage to Laughter characters, and you know what comes next.
This system adds a deep layer of strategy and uniqueness as to what would have probably just been another Smash clone without it. And with the fact that there are over 300 characters (About 50 of which are actually playable), there is so much replayability as you create countless decks using your favorite manga characters. And that's just a small taste of what this game has to offer. The sad thing is that the online is down now and the computers themselves never really pose a challenge, even on the hardest difficulty.
I wish I could have gotten the chance to play this game when the online was available. Sigh. Well anyways, any of you ever heard about this game or played it yourself?
If you want to know what my favorite deck is, it's down below.
1. Luffy (One Piece) - 5 Koma
2. Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin) - 5 Koma
3. Kurama (YuYu Hakusho) - 5 Koma
4. Nami (One Piece) - 2 Koma
5. Kakashi (Naruto) - 1 Koma; Attached to Luffy and makes him take less damage from special attacks
6. Kuwabara (YuYu Hakusho) - 1 Koma; Attached to Luffy and increases his SP Gauge when attacking or blocking
7. Urahara (Bleach) - 1 Koma; Attached to Kenshin and lets him air dash
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