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Jump King Review

With enough perseverence comes a solid platformer

I just happened to have bought this game developed by Nexile, after seeing the footage of the game. Initially, I thought this might be another one of those brutal platformers that have existed since Super Meat Boy popularised the difficult platform game genre that have been around ever since. Yet despite seeing footage of the game that I might not enjoy overall, I decided to give it a try and I absolutely enjoyed it through the end. Here is my take on Jump King.

Story: There isn't a lot to say about the game's story. An armoured knight(who bears a striking resemblance to Shovel and King knight from Shovel Knight) is destined to get a babe at the top of the tower. Heck, even the title of the game states that there is a smoking hot babe at the top! That is all there is to it and for a game like this, it does not need further work.

There is not much of dialogue in the game. The only ones that come in mind is the first character and a few others but that is about it. Most of them simply mock at the knight for attempting to get the babe while some others remain quite and do mostly nothing, such as a bird who keeps flying up upon touching it.

While the plot is simple and gets to the point, the lack of additional cutscenes, especially at the end could have been nice. Regardless, a nice simple plot.

Graphics: The graphics in this game as mentioned earlier are almost identical to that of Shovel Knight. The only exceptions are that the visuals are in 16-bit and that the backgrounds are hand drawn. Regardless, the overall graphics are vibrant with its smooth pixel art. The theme keeps changing gradually making the visuals stand out. The only flaw the game has is not having fullscreen support as of this review, as the sides of the game are still in black bars.

Audio: This is a mixed result. The sound effects are in 8-bit audio while the music has a mix of playing chiptune as well as using modern musical instruments. While this does not exactly mesh well in certain aspects, what is played here is composed well enough especially the fact that the game plays quite songs for the most part which can be a good thing considering the amount of patience required to play the game. Sadly, because of this, nothing sticks out as memorable with the only exception being the title screen and the final level. Overall, a good effort that is done here.

Gameplay: This is the best part of the entire game provided that it is given a chance to be accepted for what it is. The game is simple on paper. You move left and right, and jump on platforms, as your goal as mentioned before, is to get the hot babe at the top of the tower. As you keep jumping from one platform to another, you encounter newer levels which each have their own platforming gimmicks gradually making the game harder.

But in practice, it is a different story. You can only jump either right or left, and cannot control yourself while airborne, especially when jumping straight up, which makes the up jump almost useless. What is even more interesting is that the longer you hold the jump button, the higher your jump will be. You also have to hold the direction where you want to jump as well. You can also bump on walls which can both be useful and annoying at certain times.

This can take a lot of time getting used to as there are platforms that are arranged in manners that make you want to use lower and higher jumps. One correct move and you move to the next platform. One false move however, and the punishment can range from being mild which causes you to land on an earlier platform, to extremely severe which can potentially cause you to fall back all the way to the very start. On top of this, there are neither checkpoints that can handicap you nor are there any items that can make progress any easier. So you are stuck with your determination and patience till the very end.

Despite the challenge sounding brutal, I found the experience rather relaxing even though there are some levels of frustration on occasional situations. For starters, you do not require to accomplish the goal in one sitting as you can save and resume at the point where you stopped. This is a needed element because otherwise, the game would not be possible for nearly every player to make progress let alone beat the game. The save however cannot be exploited as the game constantly saves for every section you come across.

The other thing is that there are no enemies and additional obstacles that hinder the progress. The only obstacles are the platforms themselves which are either small, or placed in tough to reach positions, or being slopes which can slide you all the way down with little to no control(personally, I hate them).

Its just you and jumping platforms and nothing else gets in your way of progress. This makes it relaxing because you are given plenty of time to observe sections and decide which platforms to jump on and how much of distance you want to jump inorder to reach the platform.

The last thing to be mentioned is the level of mastery. You initially will fall down several times or probably hundreds of times. But with patience in understanding the game's mechanics, you eventually will be skilled enough that you will avoid making the mistakes that you have done earlier. While it is still possible that you might often end up falling to the first level, the levels are designed in a manner that make you memorise the platforms throughly so that you are bound to not do the same mistakes again. Once a specific portion of the game is reached, it becomes impossible to fall back all the way down unless you trigger the mistakes that you have done earlier.

While the game is overall solid, there are some flaws. While cirticising the game for its challenge is unfair, it is fair to criticise it for not having shortcuts for the majority of the game, when there are few portions of the game that had shortcuts, which could honestly add more to the reward of the effort for jumping on such paths. Not to mention that it could give an easier experience if a meter was added to determine the required distance to jump instead of doing it by yourself.

The last flaw is its underwhelming content. There are almost no collectibles in the main game as it is just you reaching to the very top and that is all. But to be fair, the game offers two free DLC expansions which have different experiences on their own but other than that, there is not much the game has to offer. Perhaps additional characters could be benefitical in a future DLC.

Overall: 4/5

Conclusion: If you want a challenge that is fair, as long as you have patience and determination, this is a solid platformer. However, if you don't like to deal with extreme levels of punishment or would prefer something more easy to play, then the game is not for you, as you are better off playing other platform games that are far more relaxing than Jump King.

I had patience from the start till the finish and I was overjoyed when I reached that sexy lady on the top of the tower! I might play the new game+ at some point of time.

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Underhero game review

A game that reminds you what Mario RPGs used to be.

Just because its called Underhero doesn't mean the game is heavily influenced by Undertale. Its actually more influenced by the Mario RPGs especially Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi series. I saw this game thanks to Jim Sterling's video about it and from a glance, it looked interesting. After playing it, I can safely say that this is a really awesome game that people should get their hands on! Here is my review of Underhero.

Story: 4.5/5

Once upon a time, There is a kingdom called chestnut kingdom where evil always lurks and Heroes always arrive to fight away evil and save the princesses. And the tradition keeps continuing. One day, a Hero arrives to defeat the main villain but before doing that, he is blocked by minions. However, the strangest thing that happened is that the hero gets killed by a minion's scheme. From here on, this is where the story begins.

The story is almost fantastic and well written. It has a great sense of humour all around like breaking the fourth wall, having characters do foolish actions etc. Every single character has some level of depth and personality that you will like them regardless. Almost none of the characters in this game are dull nor annoying and that's the really best part of the entire game. This moment right here reminded me a lot about what Mario RPG games used to be.

The only real problem here is how the plot ends because it ends on a cliffhanger and an unsatisfying one at that. Had that ended on a higher note, I would have personally given it a full star rating but sadly, that's not the case.

Graphics: 4/5

Yes. Even the game's graphics are not bad as they are colorful, pleasant to look at and never has anything bland. The animations for the most part are spot on. The only flaw here is the little bit of a lack of additional animations such as falling on a bottomless pit or defeating an enemy.

Music: 5/5

The music in this game is overall fantastic. It has a mix between music that is chiptune to music that is deep. The music infact makes some of the characters stand out. My personal favourite is Stiches theme because it reflects on his overall character. Even the sound effects are great as they add depth to the humour of the plot.

Gameplay: 3.5/5

And now we come to the ultimate slice of the game which is the gameplay. You play as a minion who wears a mask that is similar to a Mario enemy called a Shy Guy. You're only functions are walking or running left and right, jump and use your hood to glide and of course climb on ropes, entering doors and talk to NPCs around you. The game normally plays like a platform game where you jump on platforms, collect coins, solve some basic puzzles and explore the level around to find treasure chests that reward you with either coins, upgrades or a side quest items.

When you encounter enemies by simply touching them, you are in the turn based battle gameplay and this is where the Mario RPG similarities begin. You have three types of attacks which are the sword, the slingshot and the hammer. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. The sword is the basic and the fastest of the three but it is weak while the slingshot helps to shoot enemies from a far off distance and the hammer, while slow to execute is powerful and deals massive damage. The final move you get is the Rush mode where you must first fill both your stamina and the Rush gauge and then use your sword to do massive amounts of slicing at the cost of your stamina and the rush mode gauge being fully depleted. You can also deal bonus damage if you time your attacks based on the rhythm of the background music that plays.

Of course all of this comes for a price which is the stamina. Using the attacks cost some amounts of stamina and if you drain the stamina, you will get exhausted and you will have to wait for a while to resume combat but the same applies for the enemy.

For defence, you have your jump, crouch and the shield. Jumping and crouching help for dodging the enemy attacks similar to the Mario and Luigi RPG series while the shield is used for blocking attacks that are hard to block but this depletes your shield health and if it reaches zero, you can't use it unless you get it repaired. But if you time the block just right, you create a parry which not only stuns your enemy but also does not deplete your shield kind of similar to Paper Mario.

Besides combat, there are also two things you can do. Talk to enemies before fighting them but if you attack them, you can no longer talk to them. The other option is to pay them so that you don't have to fight them but this is a problem due to money being very scarce.

Now the reason why this gets a lower score compared to the others is because the gameplay has some flaws. The problem here is the game mechanic as its not always well executed. When facing bosses, you won't encounter them on battle mode as you often instead have to stun them so that you can damage them in battle mode making them not very challenging.

Then comes the problem with leveling up. Now interestingly, this game doesn't ask you to grind a lot. Infact, when you defeat enemies, they are gone for good just like how it is in Undertale. The downside here is the overall lack of satisfaction. While the game isn't hard to the point that you need grinding, it doesn't seem rewarding getting a level up because of how pointless it almost is besides the stamina gauge filling higher. Unlike the Mario RPG games where there is a reason for the battle systems to exist, here, if you remove this mechanic and made it to like Super Paper Mario style of gameplay, then this game would have been much better. But for what it does now is half baked at best.

And finally..the replay value. Now this game is pretty short of about 12-16 hours at best but the issue here is that there are almost no side quests to get into with only about few of them and that's that. There's no additional modes that you unlock, no optional bosses to face. Its just the main story that you deal with and nothing else.

Overall: 4.5/5

While the gameplay might not be well polished, its still great for what it does especially the plot, graphics and music and since this is an RPG game, the overall experience is still satisfactory and for anyone into RPGs or just want to remind themselves of what Paper Mario used to be, this is a game for those type of people.