Jitsu Squad is a side-scrolling beat-em-ups game released in 2022 for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC. It was developed by Tanuki Creative Studio and published by ININ Games.
Beat-em-ups is a genre that was a huge thing back in the retro-days of gaming from the 80s and 90s era, so I grew up playing a brawling action titles like Double Dragon, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, TMNT 4: Turtles In Time, and of course Battletoads which these types of games was being recognised for its badass playable characters, learning to perform various of skill moves, has 2 or 4-player co-ops, tons of many action-paced levels, and beating the f**k out of these guy's faces is what made these games quite entertaining to play that really defines our childhood gaming back then.
I also feel appreciated with several of classic arcade beat-em-ups games like X-Men arcade, The Simpsons arcade, Violent Storm, and Ninja Baseball Bat Man are the huge example of being a great titles that never got made for the home console releases such as the 4th gen and 5th gen consoles in mid-90s.
As in today's gaming, I adored those indie brawling titles like Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge which I considered these two as the best beat-em-ups games of 8th gen console era, where as some obscure stuff like Fight N Rage does a great job of capturing a classic throwback to early 90s beat-em-up games.
So there are one of the beat-em-ups game that I never actually heard of it till I've discovered it from one of the ININ Games's Youtube channel where they made a trailer footage of some random classic games compilations, remasters, and some small indie project stuff which is why I've found Jitsu Squad from last month.
It describes as the flashy and over-the-top beat-em-ups game was been first teased on their twitter page in 2018 where these style of presentation and character's concept were inspired by the likes of Saturday morning cartoons from the 80's, and it was made for Kickstarter campaign back in 2020 which had successfully reached the goal of 15,000 euros with over 109,758 euros they had gained supporting their indie project adding the additional content and overall quality development which is why it finally got it released in 2022.
It was heavily inspired by the early 90's beat-em-up classics which I'm very amazed with the use of incredible sprite animations, tons of non-stop stylish gameplay to learn, and of course the stages filled with action-packed stuff just makes me want to play this which is why I've bought a physical copy off from online store to see if the game turns out to be true after I've saw the trailer footage.
The answer is it's nowhere near close to same level as the Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, but it is also a very good beat-em-up title with many goods and few flaws which I will cover all of these stuff that the game does the right job and there's other things that they could have made it bit better.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game starts off with the legendary statue called the kusanagi stone, a hidden stone containing the soul of a powerful demon who can grant godly powers to those who awaken him, until when the evil sorcerer Origami has summoned a hordes of enemies to find the stone for him, as he plans to unleash the deadly power to rule an entire planet or something.
So you're the group of heroic warriors went on the mission to stop the sorcerer Origami from attaining the kusanagi stone before he falls into wrong hands.
There's not whole much of the story wise at the beginning of the opening scenes which took me awhile to figure it out what it is because it's just basically a squad of heroes just trying to prevent the wicked ones from obtaining the stone that contains the dark power that allows him to use it to control all over the world, so that's totally fine for the beat-em-ups perspective to keep it simple.
If you're one of those people wanted to know the character's backgrounds, then this will help you a bit to know their small backstory.
Basically these 4 heroic warriors was human at the start until when the evil Origami releases his curse power that transforming the groups of warriors into an animal form which is why they end up becoming known as the Jitsu Squad after being rescued by Master Ramen.
You'll have 4 of these interesting squads such as Hero Yamagiwa, a shinobi tanuki armed with the shiny sakura katana went on his vengeance quest to find the traitor that betrays his clan.
Baby O'Hara, a rabbit ninja has ability to throw numerous of projectiles seeking to hunt down the one who murdered her twin sister.
Jazz Amun, an holy priest afro-frog with golden pipe who is skillful and has long serious attitude, and lastly Aros Helgason, a dragon-slaying viking-warthog welding with heavy sword, so these two came to join with squads to fight out against evil.
There are only one supportive NPC such as master Ramen, an wise-monk owl who encourages the heroic squads to fight out against enemies, as he provides them with the tutorial at the beginning of the game to learn basics moves.
There are numerous cast of villains such as Dash Kobayashi, an albino fox who is former member of Hero's clan was responsible for betraying his former allies becoming Hero's arch-nemesis.
Then you have evil sorcerer Origami, a leader of the Emaki ninja clan seeking to awaken the demon inside the kusanagi stone and unlock's its dark power.
It also shares with bosses such as Balthazar the rhino pirate captain, Raven the sorcerer overlord, Viper the venomous snake-woman, Frost the white tiger, Slayer the bee-woman (AHH WHY THE F**K DO ANYONE HAD TO HAVE MORE GOD DAMN BEE CHARACTERS IN EVERY VIDEO GAMES!!!), and also Shade the shadow assassin dragon-lady.
The presentation design as a whole are quite cool because the way they made these hand-drawn animation techniques kinda gives me a Saturday morning cartoons vibes which I really liked the way the game looked so impressive in terms of characters and settings.
Each stage comes with different scenery depending on the locations, such as the tutorial stage filled with asian culture structures such as temple houses, bamboos, banzai trees, budda statues, and of course Pandas. Stage 2 are basically an asian streets with bunch of yakuza gangs and police, sushi bar, karaoke, game center, and headquarter building.
Stage 3 are the tropical places filled with pirate ships, treasures, sands, beach, and cave. Stage 4 has Halloween themed settings with ghosts, pumpkins, zombies, skull and bones, gravestones, crooked house, thin branches, and huge creepy castle.
Stage 5 has mines stuff going around like minecart tracks, train, rocks, and of course lavas and flames.
Stage 6 are sure does have icy and cold structures like glaciers, igloos, snows, and bunch of blue penguins.
Stage 7 takes place in prehistoric themed stuff like bunch of dinosaurs and several of rusty manmade structures.
Lastly Stage 8 are...yeah bunch of gory stuff like monster's internal organs scattered around and some weird gloomy places.
Each of these stages has the mix of colourful and bright, where as others are more of dark and gloomy stuffs which I really liked how they created the stage locations with different settings and design just really adds the appeal.
Overall, it has fair opening scenes, interesting characters, and has cool presentation settings.
Gameplay
The game has the options to choose play solo or local co-op up to 4-players, so you'll be selecting any of these 4 playable squads which each of them shares with different fighting techniques and abilities.
Hero is an balanced fighter uses his katana sword as the close range melee, Baby is a fast-paced ninja has long-range throwing attacks, Jazz uses his skillful of kung fu techniques, and of course Aros are slow but also deals with heavy damage attack.
Pushing the d-pad button or left stick to move the fighter around, while double tapping it in different direction to dash forward or backward.
You'll start with basic stuffs like tapping the square button to attack the enemies, pressing cross button to jump or double press it to perform double jump or glide through depending which characters you're playing.
Pressing the right shoulder button to pick-up items or even while grabbing with the enemies which you can simply beat them with the square button or throw them away by hitting the right shoulder button.
You can perform parrying on the enemies by hitting on right trigger button which not only just to deflect the enemy's projectiles, but also perform counter attack on them after successfully using the parry in right timing.
Each of the squads will perform different types of special moves which you will unlock those fighting techniques by collecting many scroll moves items, so for example: stuff like Hero's tornado slash wave and slash uppercut, Baby's drill attack and butterfly projectiles, Jazz's spinning attack. Aros's power wave attack and heavy uppercut which each of these moves deals with great amount of damage against the enemies.
You can grab the secondary weapons can be found on blue treasure chests, so each of them will have different types of secondary weapons like Hero's long-range slash and firey blade. Baby's throwing bombs, boomerangs, and shurikens. Jazz's chicken stick, spike-ball, and long-stick blade.
Aros's machine guns attached with short-range charge blast, 8-ways charge attack, and long-range grappling attack which also deals more damage too, but also drains out secondary meter bar.
You can also perform super special by hitting the circle button allows the player to perform finishing power which instantly kills all the enemies in whole single screen with severe damage, and once your fury meter bar had fully filled up after taking numerous damage from the enemies or bosses you can activate your fury mode by pressing the left shoulder button which makes your characters growing powerful in limited time which means your melee weapon and projectiles increases the hit damage temporary allowing them to perform massive damage attack on the enemies as well as bosses.
You can also access to command move lists at the pause menu to help you learn various of the moves that I've mentioned above or you can also go for the practice through the training mode which helps you to train stuff before you're fully preparing to go for the single or co-op action.
So far, the gameplay style worked really good for most part because the way the controls works just trying to implement the similar mechanics like seen in 2D fighting games like Super Smash Bros and Marvel vs Capcom where you had to perform various of chain combos, special moves, and finishing blow just worked really well in the game.
It's fast, it's responsive, and it's easier to pull off many moves which is why this game is so unique to have these stylish beat-em-ups just adds the game's variation.
Each of the characters does shares with really cool abilities which you can't go wrong with numerous of wave attacks, charging dash, throwing numerous of projectiles, and other cool stuff going around.
I also liked the crossover assist items like you see Maximilian Dood blasting with hadouken, and Yooka-Laylee keeps on rolling around are sure makes an interesting cameos appearance.
I also wanted to give out the game's credits for having an over-the-top stages filled with 8 to 10 enemies in single screen like most of the classic beat-em-ups games because having numerous of big and small enemies are much easier to gain amount of crazy combos up to more than 300 depending on how faster your character had performed and which any of stages has massive numbers of bad guys in one screen which is why I really liked building up the combo chain system where you had to keep mashing the buttons till you're reached up to higher numbers of combo hits, so the more combo hits you gained the higher your overall score had increased just really benefits your player's experience.
My favourite part of the game is the surf board segment which is a nostalgia throwback to classic TMNT 4: Turtles In Time or Hyperstone Heist, but instead of surfing on the water you're surfing on the hot lava which is pretty insane idea, even these surf board didn't melt, which I finding it quite cool to fight out bad guys in very hot surface stages while surfing.
I got to say I really liked the boss stages because not only these bosses are quite good, but also has crazy strategy where you need to know their patterns like using the parrying in right time to avoid taking damage, evading their heavy projectiles, and finding their weak spot that keeps you fighting more with the bosses until very end.
Speaking of craziness, the bosses are also unleashes their fury too because once you keep damaging the bosses multiple times, the more their fury meter goes up allowing the bosses temporary increases their attack power and special in short period of time meaning they can able to take advantage against you which really adds up a game's overall challenge.
While the single-player solo are pretty good, I also got to say I really liked the tag-team mode quite better because this will allow me to switch any of these 4 playable characters in similar fashion to Marvel vs Capcom series, so which means that I can switch any of these playable characters anytime I want too during the gameplay because in solo mode I had annoyance with the enemy fish which I can't able to attack them while they swim under the ground water or lava just always takes forever to come out when every time I moved places until they jump out of the water or lava just slows down the pacing, so thankfully in tag team mode where I can able to switch it to Aros to sort those buggers out makes it easier to eliminate them quite faster which is why I liked the tag team mode quite better in my opinion.
The local 4-player co-op are also a fun part of the game to have your friends and families joining up with you in couch co-op mode just like in the good old days of retro gaming where these guys inviting you to come over to their house and start playing 2-player mode which is great, but it's kinda shame that this game lacked the online multiplayer co-op mode would have been sound nice to have it because the games like Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge does shares with online co-op mode which really adds the beneficial part of these game, so I wonder why it's completely absent on this game for unknown reason.
That's being said, I've managed to enjoy the entire whole game which I am happy with the results had turned out quite amazing filled with 4 unique characters to play, crazy amount of combos and abilities, action-packed stages, and has the over-the-top bosses just really adds the game's overall fun factor.
Overall, it has solid controls, crazy amount of combos and abilities, action-packed stages, and has the over-the-top bosses.
Graphics
The graphics are genuinely impressive for the indie beat-em-up project because I really loved the hand-drawn visuals for its environmental design that are colourful and smooth, and the texture wise are sure clean and detailed making it the best overall techniques in any of video games.
The game does shares with great use of parallax scrolling on backgrounds, and some special effects that are sure are flashy and shadowy in entire stages.
I also liked the gory parts of the game where most of the enemies get sliced in half, their bodies get exploded with particles, and getting set on fire are just totally gruesome.
The sprites animation are does sure incredible with the facial expressions and humour looked really great in the game.
Those graphics design really gives me a Saturday morning cartoon vibes like I said it on the presentation side before which is why I finding the visuals looked outstanding.
Overall, it has colourful and smooth environments, great parallax scrolling and special effects, gory stuff, and incredible sprite animation.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack are the positive highlight of the game which was composed by Sebastien Romero, while featuring the vocalist Johnny Gioeli which you may know he's the lead vocalist of heavy metal bands like Axel Rudi Pell and also being recognisable for video game bands like Crush 40, a group responsible for creating the best songs for SEGA's Sonic The Hedgehog franchise.
These guys did such an fantastic job of creating the best part of the music in this game especially the songs such as "Go! Fight! Jitsu Dreamers!", "Surfing on the Lava", and also "Into the Heart of the Sun" which does really gives me a 3D Sonic games vibes to it which is why I really enjoyed the intensity and energised sounds.
The sound effects are does have a great use of sound design like the sound of slashing, clinging, shooting, and exploding all over the places just feels right for the beat-em-ups standards, but I also noticed the minor sound effects went really weird with muffled volume when you standing too close to the left or right side of the screen, but it didn't happen the rest of it very much when standing on the centre of the screen sounded absolutely fine, so I don't know if they forgot to fix it or maybe they don't seem to notice after testing the game out, but hopefully they should able to address it in sometime future.
I also liked the character's voices which seems to be quite acceptable for most part such as Baby sounded like any of fighting game gals, Jazz made really funny Bruce-exploitation yells, and one of the enemy character like emaki with claws screams out with Wolverine's slashing blade are sure sounds pretty decent.
Overall, it has fantastic soundtrack, great sound design, and decent voice.
Special Features
I also heard that the developers are still working on the extra content development such as they planning out to bring new game plus, survival mode, boss rush mode, new difficulty mode, and hopefully new playable character are likely to be coming right soon in the future.
Overall, despite still in development having an future extra content really adds the better overall in-game features.
Advantages
Cool presentation settings
Solid controls
Crazy amount of combos and abilities
Action-packed stages
Over-the-top bosses
Incredible hand-drawn visuals
Fantastic original music
Disadvantages
Lacks online co-op mode
That bloody enemy fish swims under takes forever
Minor sound effects needs to address
Final Verdict
Presentation 8/10 - fair opening scenes, interesting characters, and has cool presentation settings.
Gameplay 8.5/10 - solid controls, crazy amount of combos and abilities, action-packed stages, and has the over-the-top bosses.
Graphics 9/10 - colourful and smooth environments, great parallax scrolling and special effects, gory stuff, and incredible sprite animation.
Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - fantastic soundtrack, great sound design, and decent voice.
Special Features 8/10 - They likely to bring future content to this game such as new game plus, survival mode, boss rush mode, new difficulty mode, and new playable character.
Overall 8.5/10 - Jitsu Squad is a remarkable beat-em-ups title that does the job right. You have cast of badass squads to take control, has stylish gameplay with insane amount of fast-paced combos and specials, cool hand-drawn visuals like most of the Saturday morning cartoons, rocking tunes makes you pumped for brawling, and of course the action-packed stages filled with 10s of enemies in single screen and epic boss battles are perfect for both single and local co-op mode is what makes the game quite entertaining to play.
Shamefully it didn't have online co-op which is bummer because that would have benefited the game's quality, but it's not the end of the world because I'm pretty sure they will consider adding the online co-op in sometime future.
It's one of the indie beat-em-up game that we had completely forgotten about it because it was released in the same year as TMNT: Shredder Revenge which is the reason why nobody had ever heard of this game before which leaves Jitsu Squad becoming an overlooked title that should have deserve the much respect as many beat-em-ups games had to offer.
The physical copy for console release except Xbox platform should cost about £20 and £25 over, where as the digital release for both PCs and consoles should retail for £25 which you can get it on the digital platforms such as PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam, so I say this is definite buy for beat-em-ups fanatic will likely to give a cool 2D indie brawling title a worth checking out.
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