Ah, the video game tie-in. A handful of brilliant games came about as a result of the late 90s-to-early-00s’ somewhat ghoulish obsession with cross-market synergy (like Peter Jackson’s King Kong, say, or GoldenEye 007) but the majority of them were, at best, forgettable.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash reviewDeveloper: Byking, GemdropsPublisher: Bandai NamcoPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
As the obsession died down however, a younger, trendier opportunist stepped up and took its place: the anime tie-in game. Naturally, games based on anime aren’t anything new. They are, however, popping up with more and more frequency – likely due in part to anime’s ever increasing popularity outside of Japan – and one publisher is responsible for the majority of the most popular releases: Bandai Namco. Due to its collaboration with anime publishing giant Shueisha, Bandai Namco has the licensing rights to the most popular anime and manga titles in existence. Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Gundam, My Hero Academia – if it’s an anime you’ve heard of, Bandai probably owns the rights to turn it into a video game.
But just as the majority of movie tie-in games used to either be cookie-cutter first person shooters or unimaginative third person action adventure games, today the fixation seems to be on arena fighting games – which, unfortunately, brings us to Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash.
Sadly, Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash isn’t just derivative of other arena fighters, it is the epitome of every pitfall the genre consistently falls into. Trying to explain the difference between it and the other, similar anime arena fighters Bandai Namco have published, like My Hero’s One Justice or One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, is like trying to describe the difference between two slightly different shades of grey. There is one big difference between Cursed Clash and every other arena fighter I’ve played, however: it is, without question, the worst one so far.