''Jitsu Squad'' is a 2022

beat 'em up A beat 'em up (also known as brawler and, in some markets, beat 'em all) is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in Side-scrolling video game, scrolling, 2D c ...

indie video game self-developed and published by Tanuki Creative Studio for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, and published by ININ Games for home consoles. The game was released on March 29, 2022, for Windows, which was followed by console releases for

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North ...

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

and

Xbox Series X/S The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are the fourth generation of consoles in the Xbox series, succeeding the previous generation's Xbox One. Released on November 10, 2020, the higher-end Xbox Series X and lower-end Xbox Series S are part o ...

, on December 9.

Development

''Jitsu Squad'' is developed by Tanuki Creative Studio, an independent game company from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. Development on the game began in 2015 and over the years had two successful

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaigns. YouTuber Maximilian Dood and the titular ''

Yooka-Laylee ''Yooka-Laylee'' is a platform game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. It was released for Linux, macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One in April 2017, Nintendo Switch in December 2017 and Amazon Luna in October 2020. D ...

'' characters, Yooka and Laylee, appear as cameo extras in the game. Several mechanics in the game, such as "Fury Mode" and "big burst attacks", were inspired by works such as ''

Samurai Pizza Cats ''Samurai Pizza Cats'' is an animated television show produced by Saban Entertainment. It is an adaptation of the anime series ''Kyatto Ninden Teyandee'' (''Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee''), produced by Tatsunoko Production and Sotsu Agency, w ...

'' and ''

Dragon Ball is a Japanese media franchise created by Akira Toriyama in 1984. The Dragon Ball (manga), initial manga, written and illustrated by Toriyama, was Serial (literature), serialized in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' from 1984 to 1995, with the 519 indi ...

'' respectively. There were plans of a "Survival" mode and having the character Dash Kobayashi, the first boss of the game, to be a fifth playable character. None, however, were panned out into further update patches as Tanuki Creative Studio rebranded as ''Blast Zero'' in 2024 and are working on their next project '' Samurai Pizza Cats: Blast from the Past!''

Audio

Sebastien Romero serves as the game composer.

Johnny Gioeli Johnny Gioeli ( ; born October 5, 1967) is an American rock music, rock singer. He is the lead vocalist of Hardline (band), Hardline, Crush 40, and Axel Rudi Pell's Axel Rudi Pell#Band members, backing band. He is best known for his musical con ...

, the lead vocalist of

Crush 40 Crush 40 is a Japanese-American hard rock band. The group consists of guitarist and composer Jun Senoue and principal vocalist Johnny Gioeli. Crush 40 is best known for producing most soundtracks for the Sonic The Hedgehog series in the 2000s. ...

, provided vocals on 3 tracks, one of which was "Surfing on the Lava". The other two was its opening theme, "Go! Fight! Jitsu Dreamers!", and its closing theme, "Into the Heart of the Sun".

Reception

''Jitsu Squad'' received "mixed or average" from critics, according to review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. Scott McCrae from ''

Nintendo Life Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and ot ...

'' scored the game a 7 out of 10, praising the "great art style and music" and being "a love letter to '90s Capcom classics" whilst critiquing that it has "performance issues" and is a bit too "short, even for a beat 'em up". In ''

TouchArcade ''TouchArcade'' (stylized as toucharcade) is a mobile games journalism website. It was launched in 2008 as a sister site of ''MacRumors'' by its founder Arnold Kim and Blake Patterson. ''TouchArcade'' also hosts a forum and a weekly podcast. ...

'', Shaun Musgrave rated it a 7.5, highlighting its "cartoonish graphics" and "fast action", but felt that there was little "technique" to go off of and that the unlockable tag-team mode was not available from the get-go.

Accolades

Legacy

In 2024,

exA-Arcadia The is a ROM cartridge-based arcade system board released on November 27, 2019, by the Japanese game company of the same name, exA-Arcadia. History exA-Arcadia was developed with the concept of bringing traditional joystick based arcade vid ...

released an arcade port of the game, titled ''Jitsu Squad featuring Samurai Pizza Cats''. It features the character Speedy Cerviche as a fifth playable character, with

Kappei Yamaguchi , better known by his stage name , is a Japanese actor, voice actor, and '' rakugoka'' affiliated with Gokū and 21st Century Fox.Doi, Hitoshi"Yamaguchi Kappei" ''Seiyuu Database''. January 11, 2011. Retrieved January 10, 2011. After making his ...

reprising the role. The game was previously unveiled at the

Amusement Expo Amusement Expo is an annual convention featuring and showcasing vendors, developers and businesses having to do with coin activated amusements such as video arcade machines, electro-mechanical games, ticket/redemption skill A skill is the le ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

References

{{Reflist 2022 video games Arcade video games Beat 'em ups Crowdfunded video games GameMaker games Indie games ININ Games games Kickstarter-funded video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation 5 games Rabbits and hares in popular culture Video games about amphibians Video games about animals Video games about dogs Video games about ninja Video games about pigs Video games about rabbits and hares Video games developed in the Netherlands Video games featuring female protagonists Windows games Xbox One games Xbox Series X and Series S games