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YMMV / JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future

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See also: AwesomeMusic.Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure

  • Adaptation Displacement:
    • Used to be the case, at least in the West. Since the manga was not translated into English at the time, the only other piece of JoJo media that was officially available was the somewhat obscure OVA. As a result, this game, and the many memes it spawned, was the first thing most Westerners associated with the JoJo franchise. This died down considerably with the release of the 2012 anime adaptation, which helped bring JoJo back into the mainstream and turned it into one of the biggest names in Japanese media.
    • Even today, this game brought a lot of focus onto various lesser-light characters in Part 3, such that a lot of fans are more likely to think of the game's version first rather than the manga or anime, where those characters were largely unimportant. This includes Devo, Midler, Khan, and Alessi, who didn't make much of an impression in their initial outings (Alessi is frequently outright hated), but became playable characters here and got a lot of love as a result. It helps that in some cases, Heritage removed criticisms of their arcs; Midler gets an actual design, and Alessi gets the grossout aspects removed and finally delivers on the idea of him fighting Joseph.
  • Character Tiers: Being an older fighting game, the tier gaps in Heritage tend to be very wide, with 8-2 and 9-1 matchups being downright common. In the typical meta, Kakyoin and Pet Shop are considered the absolute top tiers, with their only even matchups being each other, and are very frequently banned. Beneath them are the stronger Active Stand characters, like Vanilla Ice, Polnareff, Avdol, Jotaro, New Kakyoin, and DIO. The rest of the cast is arguable in terms of how they place and are generally agreed to be still able to compete with the non-banned top tiers, but just about everyone agrees that some order of the Josephs, Khan, Hol Horse/Boingo, and Mariah are at the bottom, with Mariah in particular being viewed as the hardest character in the game to win with against a skilled opponent.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Despite what the flash animation told you, DIO does not screech out "WRYYYYYYY!" in his Road Roller super, as he actually does an Evil Laugh instead. It's instead used when he hits with his Bloody Summoning super and screeched by Shadow DIO in his "Charisma!!" super.
    • Despite what M.U.G.E.N and Warusaki3's conversion of him may have told you, the version of DIO with his jacket on is not a playable character, but an unusable boss form. You only get to use DIO without his jacket or Shadow DIO.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: It's a bit of a joke among the community that half of all players online use Shadow DIO. He's not considered an especially strong character, with most tier lists putting him in the upper end of the middle, but he sits at a very particular intersection, being both one of the most iconic characters in the original manga while also being very easy to learn relative to his standard counterpart and even many of the other top-tiers.
  • Complete Monster: "Super Story Mode": DIO is a charismatic vampire who desires the extermination of the Joestar bloodline. Having stolen the body of Jonathan Joestar to survive, DIO happily sics many Stand users—some of them enslaved by flesh buds—onto Jonathan's descendants Joseph and Jotaro, knowing that the Stand users will bring down airplanes full of innocents and kill civilians. When Jotaro and his allies make it to DIO's lair, DIO has his minion Iced murder Iggy and Avdol, then personally kills Kakyoin before trying to drain Joseph of his blood to destroy Jotaro once and for all.
  • Cult Classic: This game released during the twilight years of arcades; a combination of dwindling arcade populations and the advanced CPS-III hardware it needed being expensive made it a financial failure that was only saved when the game was put on home consoles. While it's not the most popular JoJo property (or even the most popular JoJo Fighting Game) nowadays and its status as a fighting game is niche, the game is a cult hit on two fronts. For JoJo fans, this is one of the most faithful and awesome interpretations of Stardust Crusaders available, filled with awesome music, incredible visuals, a sizeable cast, and a Super Story Mode that accurately replicates every single fight from Part 3. For Fighting Game fans, Heritage for the Future is a fan favorite that's filled to the brim with excellent mechanics, a number of unique intricacies and quirks, and has a ton of style to boot. The game was the west's first exposure to JoJo as a franchise and is often credited with laying the seeds of popularity that the eventual 2012 anime adaptation would capitalize on, making it an important piece of JoJo history and an excellent fighter in its own right. To this day, it remains one of the most consistently active games on Fightcade, rivaling the most popular Street Fighter and The King of Fighters entries on the platform.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Evil Is Cool: DIO, to the point where one of Shadow DIO's supers, where he attacks you with hair spores, is named "Charisma!!"
  • Fountain of Memes: Jotaro and DIO. This was the game where half of DIO's memes originated from, for cripes sake!
  • Funny Moments:
  • Game-Breaker:
    • Pet Shop is one of the most infamously broken characters in all of fighting games, to the point where even those who've never played this game might be aware of his reputation. His advantages include a smaller hitbox than almost the entire cast (only beaten by Iggy), never needing to block low by default thanks to his default state being airborne, a hugely enhanced aerial game, and being able to chain his supers together, but the worst thing about him was his ability to easily create unblockable setups. Holding down an attack button causes an icicle to form at the top of the screen, which falls down when the button is released. This icicle move can be prepared at any time, even while moving or blocking, and it hits overhead, so it can only be blocked while standing. If Pet Shop drops the icicle and does a low attack, which must be blocked while crouching, at the same time...
    • While Kakyoin doesn't have the same widespread broken reputation as Pet Shop, many players actually rank him above the bird, making him the best character in the game. He is a Master of All thanks to his great mobility, damage, pokes, mixups, and combos, and unlike Pet Shop, he isn't a Glass Cannon to compensate. His only weakness is that he's Difficult, but Awesome and requires some practice to master all his tools, but once you do learn him, few opponents will be able to stand against you.
    • Jotaro's story mode can be played through with little to no effort by simply backing opponents against the side of the screen and spamming Star Platinum's jabs. That is, until he gets to High DIO.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • It's possible to have DIO and Jotaro win a round and then stop time between rounds. This prevents the game from actually recovering the opponent's health until time resumes, so if this is done just right, when the opponent was in the middle of standing back up, the time masters can just do a One-Hit Kill and win a second round for free.
    • There's a bug that causes active Stand users to disconnect themselves from their Stands, resulting in them being in Stand Off mode while their Stands are still active. This messes with the characters' movement states, resulting in some wonky combos that aren't possible normally.
    • Similarly, there's a glitch that allows certain characters to airwalk, where they're both in a grounded state and floating above the ground, allowing them to hit opponents without any pushback and thus letting them get easy infinites with non-aerial normals, but preventing them from performing supers unless they can be performed in the air. One way to do this is to intentionally whiff with DIO's Bloody Summoning while holding down, then use his Stand On Blazing Fists in the air with a Tiger Knee motion (which uses another glitch where the first hit of that special will copy the properties of the whiffed attack); if it connects, it will force DIO into the grab animation which assumes that DIO is already on the ground, so when the attack finishes, DIO will be in the air but in a standing state.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Just Here for Godzilla: The main attraction of the PS1 version is the Super Story Mode that chronicles all of Part 3 in one convenient mode, a feature that did not make it to the more arcade-accurate Dreamcast version or the limited HD remaster.
  • Low-Tier Letdown: Characters with Passive Stands that are on for the whole round tend to be less well-regarded, since they essentially have half the moveset of characters with Active Stands that can turn them off and on, and lack all the tools that an Active Stand provides, like added mobility or negating chip damage and knockdowns. Still, most of them can at least work within those limitations (Pet Shop in particular has a moveset that is just that good), with the exception of:
    • Khan is easy to learn due to his simple moveset, but that's about all he has going for him. He has minimal options, his kit has no versatility, a lot of his tools are unsafe to some degree, his defense is terrible, and Chaka and Black Polnareff do nearly everything he can do and do it better. Compared to the other characters, he feels almost unfinished, though given how minor he is in the manga, few would be surprised at this.
    • Mariah is the other extreme from Khan in that she's flawed for being mechanically weird. Her gameplan is based on repeatedly leveling up Bast's magnetism by hitting the opponent with it, which slowly increases the power of her projectiles. This means that at the start of the round, her kit is pitiful, and she wants the opponent to come in close so she can spring Bast on them, but she's also a zoner with bad defense and slow and punishable moves who levels down if she gets thrown, meaning that the opponent getting in close is her lose condition. Additionally, the areas she does well at, such as chip damage and pressuring a downed opponent, can be nullified by most characters with Active Stands that can block chip damage and negate knockdowns while their Stands are up. While she does seem terrifying on paper due to the insane amount of projectiles she can output, players who know her weaknesses can make her life absolute hell.
    • Standard Hol Horse is considered a Skill Gate Character, who can punish mistakes hard, set up unblockable mixups with glass shards and Hanged Man, and evaporate an opponent's entire healthbar after a knockdown with his "slow bullet" super, but his overreliance on said knockdowns, slow supers, and lackluster buttons gives him a bad matchup against most of the top tiers. That said, he's still lower-mid-tier at worst... and then there's Hol Horse and Boingo, who, in a seeming reflection of Hol's Villain Decay, is in competition with Khan and Mariah for the worst character. "Hoingo" loses almost all of Hol Horse's good tools, including the slow bullet and all moves that rely on Hanged Man (in the process, dropping his damage output from amazing to mediocre), many of his other moves are tweaked or weakened, and though he does have some advantages and new tricks, they fail to make up for his losses. Essentially, he loses the "reward" part of "high-risk, high-reward", and generally can't do much more than be annoying.
  • Memetic Molester: Alessi gained this reputation among fans, thanks to his Stand turning most of its victims into children.
  • Memetic Mutation: This game was responsible for almost HALF of Jotaro and (especially) DIO's memes.
    • Mudada! MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAAAAAAH!translation ZA WARUDO! explanation Toki yo tomare!translation *throws knives* Soshite toki wa ugokidasu...translation Rodo rora da!!translation WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!overall explanation
    • Also present is of course, Jotaro's "ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAAAAAA!" and DIO's "MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAAAAH!"
    • The absolutely ridiculous poses that Kakyoin can pull off, especially given how reserved and soft-spoken he is in the original manga.
      KAKATTE KOI!
  • Most Wonderful Sound: The announcer, thanks to his pleasantly deep voice and amusing pronunciations. Going by his appearance on the mode/select screens, it's implied to be Daniel J. D'Arby speaking.note 
    OH-PUN THE GEEEEEHME!
    Black und whiiiiiite. FUH-HIIIIIGHT!
    Kay Ow. PUH-FEEEEECC!
  • No Problem with Licensed Games: The game is generally fondly remembered for what it is, between its unique mechanics and the fun nods towards the original manga.
  • Older Than They Think: Of a sorts. This game's English localization was the first to change Vanilla Ice's name to Iced. While the Part 3 OVA that featured Ice was made in 1993, it was not dubbed into English until around the early 2000s along with the newer OVA episodes, long after the game was released.
  • Polished Port: Being a CPS3 game, by all accounts, the PlayStation version should've been a disaster due to the engine being too much for the system to handle, especially since it was already struggling with Capcom's earlier CPS2 works. Yet somehow, whether through pure determination or black magic, Heritage for the Future managed to run perfectly on the PS1 with even more content than the arcade-perfect Dreamcast port! The most notable being the Super Story Mode for being an accurate retelling of Part 3, filled with fights skipped over in the original Arcade story mode, fun mini-games, and additional cutscenes. The only corners cut is with its graphics and animations, but fans of the PS1 version saw it as a small price to pay for the most content-complete version of the game.
  • Tear Jerker: Both of Kakyoin's endings are very bittersweet, especially if you've read the manga or seen the anime:
    • For the normal Kakyoin, he manages to defeat DIO, but shortly after the plane he and Jotaro were riding in takes off, he passes away from his injuries while Jotaro screams his name in horror.
    • New Kakyoin's ending is very similar to his death in the manga. He fails to defeat DIO, and gets killed by him, but before passing away, he manages to leave his allies a Dying Clue that helps them finish the job.
  • That One Attack
    • Pet Shop's Icicle Break spawns an icicle at the top of the screen when you hold a button, with the exact location varying depending on which button you hold. Releasing the button after a second or two causes the icicle to drop down and hit the opponent. These icicles are considered overheads and can cross up if they hit the opponent from behind. If they're released at the same time Pet Shop does a low attack, then it can easily become impossible to block both the attack and the icicle at the same time, allowing Pet Shop's player to confirm into one of their many touch-of-death combos. It's worth noting that Pet Shop is far from the only character with an unblockable setup, but other characters have to commit to theirs or rely on specific circumstances like knockdowns. Pet Shop just holds a button for a bit and suddenly there's an entire section of the screen that you can't enter without taking your life into your hands.
    • Kakyoin's Hierophant's Field, informally referred to as "the net." This is a trap that Kakyoin can lay down by holding a button, which stuns the opponent for about two seconds if Kakyoin releases the button while the opponent is inside the net's area of effect. Now, let's count the ways this is overpowered: it covers a large amount of space, it lasts an absurdly long time (29 seconds), Kakyoin can have up to three active at any given time by inputting different buttons, it comes out fast enough that he can ignore its trap utility and use it mid-combat, the stun also counts as a Stand Crash, it can only be removed by damaging it with a Stand On attack (which means Passive Stand characters simply cannot get rid of it), and to cap it all off, the nets are invisible. The sole downside is that if the net misses or breaks, then Kakyoin has to wait a bit before using it again. Getting hit with it once is enough to instantly decide a match in a lot of cases, as Kakyoin can easily manage a touch-of-death on a stunned opponent.
    • Trace of Bullets, often referred to as "slow bullet", is the main reason that Hol Horse can do his job. Consisting of a bullet that puts the entire game in slow-motion while active, it's an immensely damaging single-hit super that can be guided in mid-flight, which makes it optimal for hitting an opponent in the process of getting up from a knockdown—especially since it knocks the opponent down if it hits. If Hol gets a knockdown and has enough bars, he can just keep using Trace of Bullets until the opponent runs out of health. Even facing it in neutral can be a scary prospect, as it's pretty easy to hit with and can't be blocked.
  • That One Boss: At least in Jotaro's story, the final battle against High DIO is a surprisingly sharp spike in difficulty. While nearly all previous opponents (including regular DIO) could be easily beaten by backing them against a wall and continuously hitting them with Star Platinum's jabs, High DIO's A.I. is incredibly smart and will effectively block and counter most of your attacks while dealing out devastating combos in the blink of an eye. It's very jarring breezing through a slew of easily-broken matches only to be met with an opponent that can actually put up a fight.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Alessi's Stand was used as a way to bring Part 2 Joseph into the game. There was a perfectly good opportunity to see what would happen if he used it on DIO and see if it would have allowed Jonathan (as well as the Part 1 version of DIO) to be playable too.
    • Every character introduced in the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure version doesn't show up in any existing characters' story modes - for example, Iggy doesn't fight Pet Shop in his story mode, despite the fight being one of Iggy's most noteworthy feats. Justified, however, as none of the added characters had any AI made for them. Eventually averted in the Playstation port's Super Story Mode, which does give them AI and includes fights with them.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • Khan. An impressively minor character in the manga, he only appeared in two chapters, has a fairly unappealing design, and is the third Anubis-based character to feature in the game, between Chaka and Black Polnareff. It stands out especially because while he's a Secret Character, every other secret character was based on an already existing one, meaning Capcom could reuse a lot of their work (even Young Joseph had sprites to work with thanks to Alessi). Meanwhile, Khan's spritework is completely bespoke, meaning they had to put a lot of work into putting him in the game, and it's not like there weren't plenty of other characters in the manga that could have been made playable instead (some of whom are in the game's code and seem to have been well on their way to completion).
    • Midler is more important than Khan, with a four-chapter-long fight and the honor of being the last Stand-user the Crusaders fought before reaching Egypt, but nonetheless sticks out as an odd pick. Unlike most of the other characters to debut in Venture, she never fought up-close, and the battle with her was largely a fight against the environment she was possessing—to the point that, famously, she only appeared in the flesh for two panels, with her face obscured, and her design for the game was created wholecloth. She is one of the very few female Stand-users in the Part, however, which was likely what gave her the nod.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome:
K.O.
PERFECT!!

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