I have good memories of Jetpack Joyride on the PSP along with other Halfbrick games released on that handheld. The sequel is better from what I remember. The devs know what they’re doing in terms of delivering a fun experience, balancing the gameplay/modes/collectibles and keep you playing without making you feel like you’re grinding. Because at the end of the day, it’s one of those games where it’s hoping to keep you busy with the same gameplay loop but it’s all done so satisfyingly, that I didn’t mind extensively playing all the modes except for boss rush. The main mode is solid, endless mode is fun and given a valid reason to do in order to collect all the stickers, the arcade mode (mini games) are all good to great with the only way to upgrade the badges, the 4 vehicles are so much fun to use, power ups and upgrades are done well etc etc.

The game does have an ending. When you clear the main mode, you’re basically asked if you want to do new game plus where you get to keep some stats and gain rewards for restarting the game. I’d have loved continuing and spend some time with boss rush mode but it feels like it’s time to stop. I’m starting to feel fatigue after over a month playing about one stage on main mode, one on endless, all the challenges and some mini games in between (all platinum and perfected) etc. It did make me curious about Jetpack Joyride+ though even if I technically completed it on the PSP. They’re still updating the Apple Arcade version, so I’m going to take a look.

2 is definitely recommended and worth playing. It’s not like other mobile games where the challenge is unreasonable and you’re forced to grind. It’s just a good time and the model to follow if you have to make those type of games imo.

What a weird game, I don't mean this in the sense that it's bad but the fact that we are getting a sequel to an endless runner that is almost 10 years old really shocked me. The first game is a mobile classic. Before endless runners were a thing the first game felt revolutionary. It completely captured what a mobile game should be. Pick up and play and get addicted. But the high score nature of the original left alot to be desired, I never had urge to see how far I could go, I liked unlocking the cool outfits and jetpacks and that was it. So a sequel didn't make sense to me because the original is still being updated to this day. So the thing that really blew me away was what they did to the sequel that make it it's own thing. First they gave it a story mode with levels. This is foreign to endless runners because this runner very much has an end. Every level has a goal distance, if you get to that distance you either fight a boss or have a little bonus objective and then you stop. And with the next level you start right back at 0. While this seems counter intuitive to the point of this style of game it really works because between levels you are upgrading your guy for the next run. The other big change was doing something I can't believe wasn't in before, making it a side scrolling shoot 'em up. Every few meters enemies will spawn and you will have to fight them. Between this and the bosses they added a big extra dimension to this style of game. For about 10 days I was hooked... and then I beat the game, literally 100%'ed all the content, no grand ending just place holder graphics for "coming soon". Since hitting the end I really cooled off. There is no reason to keep going after that because that's the end of the game, nothing left to do, so I think I'm done. With the amount I have to play I doubt that I'll care enough to check this back out when theres more stuff added. The apple arcade model is so weird because releasing "full games" with no MTX is so nice but like this feels like there was a payment model in place and I wasn't supposed to hit the end this fast, and I'm just seeing behind the curtain of a team probably frantically trying to push out more content but like what's here is awesome but maybe it could've waited until there is more.