My Hero Academia: All’s Justice
Developer: Byking
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $59.99 USD – Available Here $99.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
When it comes to My Hero Academia, Bandai Namco took a rather predictable route at least at the start when it came to making games for the series. Arena fighters are the standard for anime and they released My Hero Academia: One’s Justice and its sequel within two years of each other. What came as a surprise though is that after that things went silent. Rather than drawing out a new game for each new story arc, six years have gone by and not only has the manga finished since then, even the anime wrapped up at the end of 2025.
So now that the anime has finished airing, now is the perfect time for Bandai Namco to strike while the fandom is still hot and bring the franchise back for one last brawl in My Hero Academia: All’s Justice. Featuring some reworked fighting mechanics, some expanded single player elements, and the largest roster so far, is this title worthwhile for fans?
Story
My Hero Academia: All’s Justice does not beat around the bush as the first thing players do, before any menu appears, is take part in the final battle of the entire series as a quick tutorial. That means that for those who are playing this and haven’t somehow seen or read the ending, this game will spoil that content. Anyways, once players complete that battle they will be dropped into the game’s city hub that literally works as a menu that players simply can explore. Any facilities that can be entered are game modes, customization, or options, and characters milling about outside such as familiar heroes cannot be talked to unless they are part of that facility.
Instead the heart of the game’s story is presented through the Story Mode that will see players revisiting the final season of the anime’s battles as they fight their way through Shiragaki and his numerous forms, battling against all of the villain allies in separate battles, and even partake in multi-battle long strings that see countless heroes facing off against the same villain in order to advance the plot. The story here is everything that fans have seen before and players can approach battles in any order they see fit, choosing to break away from the Shiragaki battle to fight against Toga as Ochaco and Tsuyu before the various branches meet back up. This handles the relatively messy way that the original manga presented these battles in a far better form even if their actual presentation can leave a bit to be desired, but more on that later.
The rest of the time players will spend in the game’s story will be through Team-Up Missions. This works as a “virtual reality” system designed for the heroes to test out their skills and also a place where players will be able to experience some light-hearted moments and side-content with at least some of their favorite characters. This includes partaking in random hero missions like helping an elderly woman find her lost bag to beating down a pair of robbers or training through a past disaster simulated in the game’s small open city. There are also little character specific stories that players can unlock and play through some of as they progress by unlocking these characters as allies in Team-Up Missions. These stories aren’t anything too special, but it does add a little extra for fan favorites, though it is worth noting that only Class 1A students get this treatment.
There is at least some attempt at revisiting old story content through Archives Battles. These, unlocked by progressing through Team-Up missions again, are some of the more pivotal battles that took place throughout the series and give fans a chance to revisit these memories a bit. Unfortunately they are incredibly sparse when it comes to presentation with only a few noteworthy anime stills and fresh voice over for the characters involved. Ironically, players can choose to re-battle these fights using any characters they want but there is no reward for doing so. In fact there are no character specific interactions in any form which is incredibly disappointing. Whether it is in an online match or even versus mode, characters will state their generic starting and win lines and that is it, no more special interactions between those that know each other.
Gameplay
Although the One’s Justice games were never the most complicated of fighting games, All’s Justice manages to make things even simpler despite expanding the fighting system to support three on three battles. Players will still have a very basic combat system with a basic combo string, two quirk-based attacks and variations of these if a direction is pushed, and of course their “Plus Ultra” special move. It is this last version that has been stripped down to its bare-bones unfortunately as every character now only has one version of their Plus Ultra attack rather than burning extra bars or even a full-gauge to trigger a cinematic blow to their opponent. Instead, if the player has extra Plus Ultra meter, they can tag in a sidekick to also perform their Plus Ultra attack.
Various other methods of attack remain the same such as unblockable attacks, counter strikes, and even “Rising” mode that has unique elements depending on the character and increases their fighting abilities overall for a limited time. Emergency escape to avoid being juggled remains accessible and tagging in a side-kick main combo also is possible though it also uses a player’s limited gauge. Now as mentioned a few times, the biggest factor here is that all fights in the game now have a possibility of being three on three and every character will need to be defeated to win. This is a significant change compared to only having sidekicks perform support attacks before, though support attacks have also been removed as a result.
Another element that has made things incredibly simple, should players want it, is the “simple” control scheme that the game defaults to. This automatically triggers various effects in combat such as taking a chain-combo and either tagging in an ally to continue said combo automatically or launch a Plus Ultra move at the end of it if there is room in the gauge. This option can be toggled off entirely should players want, but it does make the game even more accessible, especially since a large majority of the movement options have been removed entirely as well as the simplistic combat arenas.
Despite potentially having countless battle arenas to choose from, My Hero Academia: All’s Justice features a shockingly small nine and almost all of these arenas are small in their own right and have the bare minimum of interactivity and destruction. These stages, with the exception of two, are as generic as they come and feature invisible walls that players will be fighting against as they send opponents flying. This includes the city that players will fight in using Team Up missions which is not only simple in design, despite having some unique navigation features such as being able to use Ochaco’s gravity power to float onto rooftops to interact with tucked away characters. There just isn’t enough life and uniqueness to these locations.
What My Hero Academia: All’s Justice does have in spades is its character roster. The roster features the largest offering of heroes and villains to play as yet and while not everyone’s favorite characters have made the list, likely due to size abilities or even transformations, many have been made available for the first time ever, including numerous variations of Deku’s power level and style and Shiragaki’s forms. The balance between these characters and their various abilities is basically non-existent as there are clear discrepancies on what fighters are better than others in the game but that’s just how arena fighters are. Plus, attempting to balance well over sixty fighters with their unique abilities is impossible, especially since players now create teams of three. So most battles will mostly revolve around selecting your favorite characters and seeing how they handle each challenge, or at least when that is possible.
Story Mode missions will see players forced to use only the characters meant to be part of that battle, Team Up Missions limit the player to only Class 1A with Deku being the team leader and any allies he gains being sidekicks that are unlocked through progression. While exploring in Team Up Missions players can take on side-missions like tracking down items, fighting random thugs, and even fighting other characters to raise their stats and final score for said Mission to unlock extra rewards. Archive Battles, as mentioned earlier, eventually open players up to tackling challenges with their favorite characters but receive no reward for doing so. Instead the only time open battles are available is through simple computer versus matches or the online battling system.
Online fights are handled well-enough with a netcode that works about as well as one can expect. Throughout our time fighting others online, both in ranked and unranked matches, there was only a little bit of slowdown and lag at times but it was rather minimal. It is interesting to note that the game’s hub world does keep a display of the top ranked seasonal players on a digital leaderboard which is a nice touch.
One thing that isn’t a nice touch though is the complete lack of worthwhile customization. Previous titles gave players plenty of random accessories to equip onto their favorite heroes and change their look but now the only thing that most heroes have to unlock are alternate colors of their default costumes with a few extra characters having special versions of their costumes available for purchase using in-game currency like Mirko’s uninjured form. All other different costumes are locked behind paid DLC. The only real customization available comes in the form of changing a character’s voice lines in a fight, their victory and entry poses, and banner design. Incredibly barebones compared to the customization previously on offer in older games.
Audio & Visuals
My Hero Academia: All’s Justice shines the brightest when it comes to the anime aesthetic of the character models. Every character that fans have come to know and love are recreated perfectly here both inside of combat and during cutscenes. Unfortunately the story presentation itself is something of a mixed bag. Some of it is presented with brand new fully rendered cutscenes that are wonderful to look at while others are simply still-images of the anime flashing around. As mentioned before both the customization aspect and the stages themselves are also lacking this time around compared to the offerings in the older games and, with the removal of the Ultimate Plus Ultra attacks, so are the flashy finishing moves.
As a first for the game series, My Hero Academia: All’s Justice offers the English voice track right out of the gate for those who want to listen to the English dub that they may have grown familiar with. Those who prefer the original Japanese voice track can easily swap to it through the settings, giving players freedom of choice. The soundtrack is unfortunately a bit on the generic side, mixing together some decent action tracks and exploration music but lacks any of the signature music the anime had and any real punch as a result.
Overall
It’s rare that a game can take two steps forwards and three step backwards but that happens to be the case with My Hero Academia: All’s Justice. An impressive roster featuring nearly every hero and villain fans will want to play as, regardless of balance, is a nice touch and some of the presentation in the main story is impressive even if it is also mixed with generic anime stills. Thankfully some expanded single player options and a serviceable online mode make for plenty of ways to keep playing the game beyond the storyline, though the actual combat, while more enjoyable with the three on three design, feels like it has taken a step back due to removed mechanics.
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