One more jump. *dies* ONE MORE JUMP! *dies again*
If you have played Super Meat Boy, Super One More Jump will immediately feel familiar. Simple
controls, small levels filled with hazards that kill you on contact, and quick respawns. There is one
notable difference however. Whereas with Super Meat Boy you could control the character directly, in Super One More Jump you can only jump. Forward movement is automatic meaning that more than raw skill, timing is essential.
This unfortunately also works to Super One More Jump’s disadvantage. Because everything but
jumping is automatic, the game relies on various types of obstacles to create variation in gameplay.
As the player progresses, the game introduces more and more obstacles for the player. This also
means that during the opening levels of the game, the types of obstacles the player will encounter are
few in number, making those levels rather repetitive and easy to beat. In short, it takes a while for the
game to get going.
Once the game hits its stride, it becomes fun. Its difficulty will go up quickly, but with quick respawns
you will find yourself thinking “one more time” very often. Five minutes will turn to twenty in no time.
This doesn’t make the later levels perfect however. While the balance of the levels is okay,
sometimes you are hit with a massive difficulty spike and you will find yourself dying over and over
again without making any progress whatsoever. Part of the problem with the difficulty spikes is that
certain levels require almost pixel perfect timing, which changes the game from challenging to
frustrating. Fortunately, in Super One More Jump you unlock levels in sets. In order to unlock the next
set of levels, you need to beat a certain number of levels in the current set, meaning you have some
room to skip a few levels and just come back to them later.
As you beat more and more levels, you will also start unlocking extra modes, such as endless mode
and a vault with more puzzles to complete. I found these extra modes to be more fun than the actual
game, so I would have liked it better if at least the more unique modes were available from the very
start.
The graphic design is rather simplistic, but in each level you can also find 3 “bits.” These bits serve
as currency, which allow you to buy different graphic sets for your game. You can customize your
player avatar as well as the design of the levels themselves. It’s interesting seeing the different
designs, but I found myself going back to the default simplistic graphics since they are easier to
understand when you are trying to avoid all the obstacles. In addition, when you get all three bits in a
level and complete it, you can replay the level in different modes for some extra challenges. It won’t
give you anything in the way of rewards, but it’s nice to have.
Super One More Jump may not be a perfect game, but there is still plenty of fun to be had here. If you
can overlook the slow beginning and the occasional difficulty spike, it’s a good game to play in short
bursts. If this sounds like something you might like, by all means give it a try.
Final Score 6.5
(Review code provided by the publisher)
No comments:
Post a Comment