The basic plot, based on the original manga and subsequent anime of the same name as the game, revolves around five main characters, all of whose names include "Jo" in them, hence the title. The main enemy is Dio, an evil vampire who wishes to gain more power so he can stop time for as long as he wants. What makes the story original is that most of the characters have Stands, spiritual protectors that are based off of tarot cards and controlled by the will of the human associated with it. To put it simply, the story is the good Stand users versus the evil Stand users.

To start, one might assume this game is standard Capcom fair. The gameplay, however, is similar, yet still far away from the classic Street Fighter style. To begin with, the player has the options of Story, Arcade, Versus, Option, and JoJoPoke (Pocketstation mini-games you can play if you are one of the lucky few to own the device.) The controls are different from the normal six button setup, instead you use four: square=light attack, triangle=medium attack, circle=hard attack, and X activates your Stand.

Just like the SF series, fireball and dragon punch motions pull off your special moves and supers, but effectively using your Stand is the most important part of the game. When you activate your Stand, a blue meter appears below your power bar. As your Stand takes damage, so do you, as well as lowering your Stand's meter. As soon as the meter disappears, so does your Stand, thus handicapping your ability to combo. Stands can combo much better than their human counterparts because all Stands have easy chain combos that can be performed by simply tapping the attack buttons in sequence. Besides having the bonus of better combos, there is a special move where you can program your Stand to do anything you want for a few seconds, allowing you to set up some devastating attacks. These attacks can lead to combos of over 25 hits because while your Stand is beating your opponent to a pulp you can simply walk up and knock him/her silly as well. The only problem with this move being that if it misses, you can not block while your Stand is away from you.

As a bonus, Capcom threw in the Super Story mode for the home port. The story mode follows along with the original Japanese comic, and is incredibly long. You may find yourself playing for an hour or two to complete the entire story mode. This mode is also where I had the most trouble with the game. Some of the mini-games you have to complete are incredibly difficult. The games include everything from shooting a rampaging ape, to dodging attacks from a evil creature that is growing out of your arm... bizarre stuff indeed. I assume that if I was familiar with the comic all of this would make sense to me, but alas, I have never picked the title up except for a glance.

The graphics are incredibly smooth; I would never expect less from Capcom. Of course, since this game is on the Playstation it suffers from long load times; something that I have also come to expect. But load times aside, the game is full of eye candy. From one of Dio's supers, wherein he crushes you with a steam roller and then beats you into the ground with it, to another of Midler's special moves, wherein what appears to be a '57 Chevy pops out of the ground and hits you, you'll always be impressed. The only part of the graphics package that disappointed was the incredibly static backgrounds. Some of the stages actually take place in a desert or field of some sort--very boring.

The sound, as in most Capcom games, is very bland and uninspired. Most of the time you can't hear the music over all of the sound effects of hits and character screams anyway. It is mildly annoying, even though this is the case with most fighting games, but the gameplay more than makes up for it.