RockosModernLife
Jack Bros. 1995
Log Status
Abandoned
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Platforms Played
Virtual Boy Complete - Game #7
The idea of the Virtual Boy within gaming culture has always been "Wario Land good. Jack Bros. good. Everything else bad." This is not true. I really tried to get into Jack Bros, but it ultimately fell flat and came off as forgettable. It's not without merit and I can see what stuck with people from it - the problems with this game are not in its foundation, it is in the levels and bosses themselves.
Jack Bros. is a top-down game, you go through a level collecting keys, attacking enemies with a single attack, pushing blocks, and jumping off of exits - your health is also the time limit, getting hit by enemies reduces your time (within the plot, you're a fairy who has entered the human realm and has to get home by Halloween). This is a Sokoban puzzle game setup, no way about it, the combat is too rudementary to really be a top-down action game (Jack Frost has a weak rapid projectile, Jack Lantern has a slow powerful projectile, and Jack Skeleton (no relation), who I played as, only has a dinky little knife), but Jack Bros. does not really have many puzzles - it's structured like an action game where most gameplay revolves around killing and twitch-dodging enemies while the puzzles are inserted infrequently to vary the gameplay loop. This makes a game that has a well-made engine just feel slow and clunky. I will say that in the main stages you do get enough timer collectables for the time limit-health system to not feel unfair - key word: the main stages. This segways into the bosses.
The bosses are probably the worst part of this game - they're not poorly designed really, they're kinda just bog standard top-down bosses with weak points and projectiles - the problem is, like the engine, everything else around it. Timer power-ups never show up on boss fights, even though - being at the end of the stage - that is where they are by far most needed. leading to many unfair deaths. Also of note: the star system, you can collect stars that do a screen wipe - but, because this is a puzzle game where every enemy goes down in one hit, it's virtually useless until you get to the bosses, where you will have collected multiple stars (you start with 3) and can basically get it down to a quarter of it's health for no effort... and even then still get cheated by the lack of timer power-ups.
The game is at its best when it's doing puzzles. There's a fun floor with multiple exits where you have to look under the stage to figure out where to drop, and one interesting puzzle involved destroying lasers, but these puzzles are very few.
The game has a fantastic soundtrack, but it starts all over whenever you progress a stage, so you barely get to hear the smooth VB tunes. The game also suffers from having a lot of madatory tutorial text. Luckily, these don't replay when you die and restart a stage, but not so luckily, there's no way to replay them either.
Ultimately, Jack Bros. is simply "meh", only really notable for being the first localised Shin Megami Tensei game, otherwise it doesn't really have much going for it even within the Virtual Boy lineup I've played so far. If the levels and bosses were designed with puzzles in mind, I would be able to call it a stand out, but they just kinda aren't.
The idea of the Virtual Boy within gaming culture has always been "Wario Land good. Jack Bros. good. Everything else bad." This is not true. I really tried to get into Jack Bros, but it ultimately fell flat and came off as forgettable. It's not without merit and I can see what stuck with people from it - the problems with this game are not in its foundation, it is in the levels and bosses themselves.
Jack Bros. is a top-down game, you go through a level collecting keys, attacking enemies with a single attack, pushing blocks, and jumping off of exits - your health is also the time limit, getting hit by enemies reduces your time (within the plot, you're a fairy who has entered the human realm and has to get home by Halloween). This is a Sokoban puzzle game setup, no way about it, the combat is too rudementary to really be a top-down action game (Jack Frost has a weak rapid projectile, Jack Lantern has a slow powerful projectile, and Jack Skeleton (no relation), who I played as, only has a dinky little knife), but Jack Bros. does not really have many puzzles - it's structured like an action game where most gameplay revolves around killing and twitch-dodging enemies while the puzzles are inserted infrequently to vary the gameplay loop. This makes a game that has a well-made engine just feel slow and clunky. I will say that in the main stages you do get enough timer collectables for the time limit-health system to not feel unfair - key word: the main stages. This segways into the bosses.
The bosses are probably the worst part of this game - they're not poorly designed really, they're kinda just bog standard top-down bosses with weak points and projectiles - the problem is, like the engine, everything else around it. Timer power-ups never show up on boss fights, even though - being at the end of the stage - that is where they are by far most needed. leading to many unfair deaths. Also of note: the star system, you can collect stars that do a screen wipe - but, because this is a puzzle game where every enemy goes down in one hit, it's virtually useless until you get to the bosses, where you will have collected multiple stars (you start with 3) and can basically get it down to a quarter of it's health for no effort... and even then still get cheated by the lack of timer power-ups.
The game is at its best when it's doing puzzles. There's a fun floor with multiple exits where you have to look under the stage to figure out where to drop, and one interesting puzzle involved destroying lasers, but these puzzles are very few.
The game has a fantastic soundtrack, but it starts all over whenever you progress a stage, so you barely get to hear the smooth VB tunes. The game also suffers from having a lot of madatory tutorial text. Luckily, these don't replay when you die and restart a stage, but not so luckily, there's no way to replay them either.
Ultimately, Jack Bros. is simply "meh", only really notable for being the first localised Shin Megami Tensei game, otherwise it doesn't really have much going for it even within the Virtual Boy lineup I've played so far. If the levels and bosses were designed with puzzles in mind, I would be able to call it a stand out, but they just kinda aren't.