Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash - What went wrong

Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash – What went wrong

Time Stamp: February 18, 2024 8:35 PM

Nearly two weeks since Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, yet the fans were pretty disappointed. The beloved anime/manga gets high praise from the anime community, yet the game itself has mostly negative reviews from the gaming and anime community. 

Anime games have their mixed opinions, some enjoy seeing their favorite animes and mangas come to life in another medium, while others think the adaptions are lackluster in comparison to their original material. 

Unfortunately for Jujutsu Kaisen fans, the latter is true. Receiving a “mixed” review rating on Steam and other publications reviewing the game on 1/5 scaling or worse. The review section on Steam is full of people complaining about how lackluster the game was, how the price is not worth the content, and even making inside jokes referring to the manga for the Jujutsu Kaisen community. 

Steam also notifies readers that the product was received for free or refunded, and many of the top comments unfortunately have “product refunded” over them. 

The game, developed by Byking Inc. and published by Bandai Namco, is the first home console game for the Jujutsu Kaisen series. Ironically, Byking Inc. also developed “My Hero One’s Justice,” another 3D fighting arena game that has gotten much more positive reviews compared to Cursed Clash. 

So, what happened? There are many factors to consider when it comes to the downfall of Cursed Clash such as gameplay, story,  character roster, technical aspects, and even the overall timing of the game. 

The gameplay: 

Jujutsu Kaisen is known for its amazing power system with cursed techniques and cursed energy, it is how the characters, also known as sorcerers, fight one another and prevail. Normally, sorcerers, have a set amount of cursed energy to use on cursed techniques, but Cursed Clash changes that. Instead of having that amount set, players have to attack another player to “build” their energy, however, those attacks do not do any damage to the opposing player. Instead, it just gives them the energy that can be used for cursed techniques to then finally damage players. 

This, combined with a floaty, yet stiff combat experience, leaves players wondering if the developers even had enough time to polish their final product. Players have a massive arena to fight around, yet cannot juggle their opponents due to the stiffness of the game. Some arenas also include destructible environments but players can also just run through them and break them themselves, taking away some of the effects of the game itself.

Fans wanting to play 2v2 with friends will each have to cough up $60 and ensure they each have a console to play on, as there is no local multiplayer. Which is pretty absurd for a 2024, full-priced game. And the online mode is also not ideal and there can be a lot of lag within games. There isn’t even an option to 1v1 someone online, only 2v2.

The characters: 

The base roster has 16 playable characters from the Jujutsu Kaisen anime of season one. In season one, there are two Jujutsu High Schools that hold sorcerers, while one school is more prominent than the other, that does not mean the characters there are forgotten super easily. Fans question why Mechamaru and Noritoshi Kamo were not included in the base roster but Aoi Todo, hailing from the same school, was included.

However, Cursed Clash does a great job of adapting the character’s appearance, cursed techniques, animations, and traits overall.

The timing: 

While DLC was announced, the” Hidden Inventory Arc,” though season two of Jujutsu Kaisen finished in December 2023, and the game was released on Feb. 1, 2024. So it begs the question; why not wait?

As mentioned, season two finished in December 2023, but the game content only contains season one of Jujutsu Kaisen and the movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0. So, why not hold off on the game to include the contents, characters, and story, of season 2 instead of introducing it as DLC? Despite it coming as DLC fans are already upset about the game being $60, now they have to pay more to access content that will more than likely be produced in the same quality.

The story: 

Arguably the strongest point of Jujutsu Kaisen is the storytelling from the anime/manga. Yet, where it is beautifully drawn/animated in its other mediums, falls rather lazy and basic in the video game. The story just has anime screenshots, combined with CGI cutscenes that are not anything special, so for people who have read or watched Jujutsu Kaisen, why even bother with the story mode cutscenes? People who have not experienced anything Jujutsu Kaisen related are better off watching or reading it.

The verdict:

Jujutsu Kaisen is a beloved series overall but this game does not do it any justice whatsoever. For $60 fans can easily acquire a newer, more developed game. While most new games go for $70 now, it is only an additional $10 to get something much more enjoyable and long-lasting. And for fans deciding to keep the game, they will have to hold out and hope Byking will release a patch soon and fix up some of the major issues the community has with the game.

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