MY HERO ACADEMIA: All’s Justice Hands-On Preview – The Final War Is On
While it may not be nearing release yet, MY HERO ACADEMIA: All’s Justice made an appearance at PAX West 2025. MP1st was invited to a private demo session with Bandai Namco’s upcoming arena fighter to see how it’s shaping up.
Our MY HERO ACADEMIA: All’s Justice hands-on preview to see how the Final War is shaping up in video game form as the dev continue working on the game leading up to an unannounced release date.
It’s All Led to This
MY HERO ACADEMIA: All’s Justice is set during the aforementioned Final War, between the heroes and villains of the world. While we weren’t shown much in the way of story content, we were told that it will follow the Final War, with ultimate Quirks and all. Quirks is the name of the special abilities that most heroes are granted in this universe, and they can become incredibly flashy, ultra-powerful moves that can deal a ton of damage.
Now, admittedly, I am not a great fighting game player. I can do a couple of combos on Mortal Kombat, and occasionally enjoy ranking up in Tekken, but I’m not pulling off any sort of crazy moves these days. Our appointment also took place on the third day of a very busy PAX West, pretty early on in the day. So, my already low-level skills were on display. I played a basic intro fight to get things started, and the demo mercifully had a no-fail mode on to get used to the game’s fighting mechanics. Predictably, it didn’t go too well – my HP dropped to nothing, and I limped through to the end.
Let’s Try That Again
Despite my embarrassing performance, I soldiered on to the next fight. Here, I got to select three characters to team up against three CPU-controlled opponents. I picked Nejire, Tamaki, and Mirio, to fight against Tomura, Neito, and, hilariously, Deku. If you know a little bit about My Hero Academia, you’d know that Tomura is All for One, while Deku is One for All. They are archnemeses and would never really team up, but I thought it would be funny to see.
So, how did round two go? Much better than the first. Using the normal control scheme, which is set up for more casual players, it was easier to string together combos, trigger Rising or Plus Ultra, and evade attacks. I managed to beat the CPU without running out of HP.
It felt satisfying to understand some basic moves while also being able to switch characters out as the situation called for. The CPU was no slouch, either. It first attacked furiously, and as the fight progressed, it would switch characters almost as often as I did. Once the CPU was down to the last fighter and the “free” Rising mode wore off, it became much more defensive, attempting to keep distance between us, getting in ranged attacks where possible, and blocking many of my attacks. Ultimately, though, my team’s overwhelming power proved victorious.
Rising to the Challenge
As with most fighting games, there are meters you can fill up for more power. In All’s Justice’s case, this includes the Rising and Plus Ultra meters. Once the Rising meter is full, the Rising mode can be activated, which greatly powers up your characters. It is also automatically triggered whenever either team is down to its last member, serving as a sort of crutch that can give struggling players a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
The Plus Ultra meter has three levels, and just like with other fighting games, the higher the level, the stronger the attacks.
The Unreal Engine ran All’s Justice on a PS5 at a nice and smooth clip. While specifics were not detailed, it appeared to be at least 60fps, and no noticeable slowdown was spotted, even with the game in an early state. The cel-shaded look mixed with comic book-like effects made it look like a graphic novel brought to life, and the solid voice acting helped to sell the feeling of playing through an episode of the anime.
MY HERO ACADEMIA: All’s Justice appears to be the ultimate arena fighter for fans of a series that is finally reaching its exciting conclusion. With all kinds of unique quirks to mix and match, and a combo system that was able to deliver impressive results for one very tired journalist, series fans should get ready to live through the final war between heroes and villains when MY HERO ACADEMIA: All’s Justice launches on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. A release date is not yet set, but rest assured, when that date is official, you’ll learn about it here.
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