World Heroes 2 Jet Review (Switch eShop / Neo Geo)

Unsurprisingly, World Heroes 2 Jet is a lot like the regular World Heroes 2. Utilising the same two-button setup (one punch, one kick; hold for a stronger attack), the same 14 playable characters return along with two newcomers: the clawed Jack and halberd-wielding Ryofu. There’s also been a speed bump and the addition of a dash ability, but this is not simply the previous game with extra bits added; there are some changes and omissions, too.

The main mode of play is a tournament that plays out similarly (but not identically) to the 'Normal' mode of the previous game. All new stages are featured and there’s a scene at the start of the playthrough with your character standing high up on a building looking moody, but a bigger change is the fact that this tournament begins with single round confrontations.

For four in-game days you’ll have three single-round fights, with the trio of fighters enter the arena together looking like best buds. Should you win at least two of these fights, you’ll proceed to the next day. In a game already faster-paced than its predecessors this means you’ll find yourself working through opponents quickly, while also occasionally being in the strange situation of losing a fight, but moving on to the next one anyway.

The bonus rounds where you smashed something for points are gone, but between the second and third days there’s a chance for some bonus points when you are faced with a charging bull. After the fourth day the game switches to single opponents and the traditional best-of-three rounds fights. There are five of these, culminating with a showdown against new end of game boss Zeus (the old World Heroes 2 bosses are not included).

The mix of single and best-of-three round fights leads to a slightly odd pace and it’s not as fully-featured as other fighters, but the battles still entertain thanks to the varied cast of colourful characters and a good selection of special attacks. The increase in speed, the dash ability plus a couple of new characters give the fights an edge over the previous instalment, but further improvements would be made in the next game. World Heroes Perfect (already available on the eShop) would add a power gauge, switch to a four-button setup as well as throwing in new power attacks and some new characters too.

Though at its core it was an inferior game, the regular World Heroes 2 did at least offer something different in the form of its deathmatch mode, but that's not included here. Instead the other single-player mode is 'The Forging of Warriors' where you pick an opponent from the 16 available and then fight in a best of three-rounds bout. Old stages pop up in these brawls and should you win four fights you’ll be treated to a scene where you fly off to the tournament of the main game. Successfully defeating Zeus in the main mode, meanwhile, will give you one of three endings (depending on performance), but there are no character specific ending scenes which lessens the incentive to play through with them all.

The usual ACA options are available to adjust the difficulty to your liking or add scanlines to the image. The one-credit Hi Score and five-minute Caravan modes are also present giving you online leaderboards to try and move up as you replay to improve your score in that way that people don’t with fighting games. More enjoyable is the two-player versus mode enabling you to battle against a friend. One feature of note with the two-player mode is that after selecting your character you can pick from four 'types', enabling your character to have an edge in offence, defence or speed.