•   Jump! Ultimate Stars This is a link to the GameFAQs page with the FAQ to understanding the gameplay, characters, etc.
• Use the FAQ in building your deck. If you cluelessly add stuff together you’ll probably be less powerful then someone who put some time into it
• Characters are upgradeable. You do not have to be Luffy and Naruto the entire game, unless you want to. You upgrade characters by going to the world select, pressing Y, going down one then hitting enter. From there you can put it together. You gain points by playing missions that can be spent to upgrade your “Koma”.
• Help characters are sometimes awesome (Death Note for instance) and sometimes lame. Sometimes they can be harmful. Kinda like how the Light koma where he writes someones name in the Death Note… it’s helpful in that it kills enemies but it doesn’t kill them with special attacks which are needed to get certain objectives completed.
• You get more worlds by defeating all of the current worlds. I’m not exactly sure what “defeat” is, I guess beat every mission’s main objective. I cleared them all and get the next j-universe thing.
• Certain characters are just better then others. For instance, Kenshin is better then Gintama in that he can triple jump, his ultimate flings people and can hit them easily, and he does a good bit of damage. However, Gintama is pretty awesome because hell, it is Gintama.
• Eyeshield 21 is an anime I need to see.

That’s pretty much it. Go read the FAQ people who search “Jump Ultimate Stars Help”. Heh.

The game, as mentioned earlier, features almost the full cast from Weekly Shonen Jump ranging from Naruto, Bleach, One Piece to Gintama and Dragonball Z. Each various series has a cast of characters that can be chosen to be played as either actual combatants, helpers (who come in, do something, leave), or as a form of a passive buff to one character or all. These characters are referenced as koma and come in those three types (battle koma (actual combatants), help koma (helpers), and support koma (passive buff).

These “koma” are laid out on a board and are arranged like pages of a manga. These are considered a “deck” or “panel”. You can choose different kinds or for some missions the game has a pre-set one already made for you. The fight plays out very Super Smash Bros. Melee like with you battling, using helpers, switching characters, and doing other things with the characters from Shonen Jump.

The game is completely awesome. For instance, you can be Goku. Fighting your enemies, you summon Light Yagami from Death Note. He writes their names down in his Death Note and they die 10 seconds later (we assume 45 in the game). Then, you switch Gintama. You hop on your scooter and dash into 3 enemies pushing 2 of them off the cliff. These enemies of course are Naruto, Luffy, and Vegeta.

This kind of gameplay is just amazing. For the DS that is. Each match usually lasts no more then 3 minutes so you can play, put down, pick up, play some more, put down. You don’t need to know much Japanese (but I urge an FAQ for assembling decks do you know what you’re doing). Doing Kenshin’s ultimate attack, followed by Goku’s Spirit Bomb, followed by some good ‘ol Death Note action is amazing.

If you can import and are even a remote fan of Shounen Jump I’d pick this up. If you don’t like Shounen Jump then I can understand skipping it. If you’re netural I would still say get it for the fun the fighting game presents however it’s way more enjoyable if you know a few of the characters (like Naruto and One Piece).

Upgrading your characters, unlocking new stages, and just battling will consume a ton of time. I think I’ve put about 5 hours into it and am at the second stage of worlds. Although I’m doing a lot of collecting and mission completing. There is just a lot to do.

It’s kinda expensive, ranging between 30 and 50 bucks imported. It’s also only for the Nintendo DS and not everyone has one of those (shame on you). You should get it though.

If I had a solid rating system, I’d say 5 out of 5 or 9 out of 10. It’s just a really solid game. Only thing lacking, of course, is the music. Totally not gar enough.