Same day as Castlevania DS, actually! It's like if Nintendo's two biggest GBA games for the year came out on the same day in the US... wait.
ANYWAY, since I can't create a new thread, I wanted to bump this one with info! Since I imagine all the scans for this game come out in V-Jump, no new info will be coming out for another month. There are still at least three big Jump series missing from this game (Hunter X Hunter, Prince of Tennis and Bleach), and I imagine all three will be in the game (I thought Yu-Gi-Oh! wouldn't make it because of Konami's stranglehold on the license, but Shueisha doesn't care! Damn they're hardcore!), they'll be in the upcoming announcements, along with some surprise series I'm sure (City Hunter? Hokuto no Ken? Dr. Slump? Some other old Jump stuff?). Also, as far as I know, characters from the following series are in the game:
- Dragon Ball Z (Goku, Gohan and Vegeta were in the initial scan, but only Goku has appeared as playable; Gohan and Vegeta may have been phased out in order to include more OP characters; also Shenlon Stage and Senzu Beans)
- Naruto (Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke are playable characters; Rock Lee is a confirmed support character and it looks like Shikamaru, Neji and Hinata are also support)
- One Piece (Luffy, Sanji and Zoro are confirmed playable characters; latest screens show both Nami and Nico Robin as support and playable characters; Chopper is a confirmed support character; Going Merry is a Stage)
- Rurouni Kenshin (Kenshin and Saitou popped up in May's gaggle of screens, but only on the manga panel version, no confirmation on playable or support)
- Yuyu Hakusho (Hiei popped up like the Kenshin characters did, same deal)
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Jotaro is confirmed playable; Dio's Castle is a stage)
- KochiKame (Full name is stupid long; main guy is playable character; other idiots support I'm sure)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! (Yugi is playable)
- Bobobobo Bobobobo (Bobobo and Don Pachi are playable, Heppokomaru might be playable; other idiots are support or item characters at least)
- Shaman King (Yoh is a confirmed playable character; May's screens showed Anna as a manga panel, probably a support character)
- Eyeshield 21 (The latest screens showed Hiruma doing a bunch of stuff, but he was right next to a playable character, it looks like he's support; Kurita & Eyeshield himself are confirmed support characters; um, flying footballs hovering over nondescript stadium is a stage)
- D. Gray-man (May's screens showed simply the words D. Gray-man in an item collection box, probably a support character)
- Black Cat (Black Cat [is that the main character's name?] and Train look like support characters)
- Hikaru no Go (Hikaru & Sai looks to be a support character)
- Death Note (L and Light are confirmed support characters)
- Mr. Fullswing (I'm sure whoever they are all appear support characters)
- Ichigo 100% (Same deal)
So assumed playable characters are: Luffy, Zoro, Robin, Sanji, Nami, Goku, Bobobo, Don Pachi, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Yoh, Yugi, KochiKame guy, and Jotaro.
Hm. That list looks a lot more barren than I thought it would. I certainly hope some of the RRK or YYH characters are playable, or that some of the characters from HxH, Bleach or PoT are playable. Otherwise, it's just OP vs. Naruto.
Also, the Jump Pirate appears frequently as an obtainable item. I'm sure he'll end up playable in some form thanks to wacky ol' Nintendo. The initial teaser previews also said there'd be "three more series" appearing, but that was before even Bobobo was added, and they've added far more than three series since then. It looks like the game will encompass everything important that's come from Jump since at least the early 90's, which makes me think that they decided against holding things off for the inevitable sequel. Which means the inevitable sequel will include a few villians from the popular series, as well as palette swapped Young Goku and Old Naruto (ha ha... ha).
It actually looks like Ganbarion is giving a hoot for once in their existance and trying to create a game that isn't best described as "eh... it's ok." Which certainly fits their last game (did they even make that one?) One Piece: Grand Battle - Combat Rush (which was the best of the OP:GB games by far, but not as good as the Nintendo co-produced One Piece: Treasure Wars), and better than the last game I know they produced, One Piece: Grand Battle 3 (which was absolutely abysmal in every way). Someone cut and paste this into a new thread or something, the game's only, uh... 3 months away! And it's for DS! Everyone loves the DS.
Also, it looks like this game has three attack buttons! Even though that only amounts to about 10 attacks per character, at least you've learned something, Nintendo (p.s. command specials are good at least include cancellable attacks, jerks)!
