JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword is a simple RPG platformer that is fast and entertaining indie game developed by Blowfish Studios and NX Games and published by Crescent Moon Games. The premise begins with Jack’s lover, Nara, is kidnapped by an evil orc king that takes her to his underground layer. As soon as she’s kidnapped, Jack follows them and finds a cursed sword named Kuro that becomes his ally as long he helps him break the curse. From there Jack fights evil monsters and bosses in order to find Nara.
For its pros, the game has fun mechanics (most of the time), fun music, and great pixelated art. However, there are several places that the developers could have focused more attention on. These issues include strange camera angles, awkward dialogue, and awkward game mechanics that should not have existed especially for the Nintendo Switch. Overall, JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword Ventures is a game that needs some work in some areas that would make this game absolutely fantastic.
What makes this game fun are the mechanics that allow Jack to move around the environment. Since there are environmental dangers like spikes and lava, the items that you get in the game help Jack move around efficiently to the next area. JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword is also a great game to play in one sitting. The game has no levels, and it simply is one continuous dungeon that has enemies and bosses. There are stones where you can save, and you can also buy torches that let you save anywhere. You also pick up items that improve Jack’s mobility or allow variety of weapons. This is the most RPG aspect of the game. If you are a fan of aesthetics, JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword does not disappoint. The pixelated art and music are incorporated well in the game.
There are many minor flaws that ruin the game experience for JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword. The most important flaw for me is the strange technical mechanics for the Nintendo Switch. The developers decided to designate at least three completely different actions for the Y button. I understand the dialogue portion, since it’s easy to see when you can speak or not, but it was easy to use up your crystal if you pressed the Y button. The instructions state to hold the Y button to activate the crystal, but it usually goes off by only pressing Y. It may seem minor, but it was an annoying part of the experience to be certain that Y was never pressed while crystals were in my possession.
Another minor flaw are the awkward camera angles. I see where the developers were trying to do with waiting at the end of a ledge to let the camera drop. But more often than not Jack still landed on an enemy or environmental obstacle. Taking out this mechanic overall would make the game experience smoother and the camera angles would not be awkward from the player’s standpoint. Lastly, the dialogue is somewhat awkward. Despite the plot being simple and JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword does not focus on plot, the statements that Kuro, the sword, says throughout the game makes it seem like he’s evil. He regularly says “Kill Kill Kill” or “Do you think I can feel pain?” The comments are random, and almost strange as there is no context once you finish the game. There are also these random men you find that also say random statements for example, “You have a nice pair of boots.” Once again, there is no context and neither is it explained. The game is not focused on plot, but adding random dialogue does not really help with the game.
The enemies are not hard to defeat and the bosses are fair in their difficulty (mostly pattern attacks with very high HP). The hardest part of the game is once Jack dies, you go back to your saved point but with only one heart. This makes it deadly for even smaller enemies to kill you and have you begin again. Potion drops for HP are rare, so this makes the game harder than what it should be especially for smaller enemies that can kill you in one or two hits.
JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword is fun to play if you are into fast platformers that have a lot of jumping and avoiding obstacles. The difficulty itself is fair and even reasonable the deeper you get into the dungeon. The minor issues of the game make the gameplay awkward and less playable, but without these minor issues I think this game would be a nice, solid indie platformer.
Rate: 6.5/10
Check Out the JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword Trailer:
JackQuest: The Tale of the Sword is available across Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC.
Nintendo Switch Review
I have been a pretty casual gamer for most of my life. One of my favorite games I always fall back to is the Pokémon franchise, like Pokemon Sapphire and Yellow, as well as indie games for PC. I enjoy indie games a lot as well as RPG's.
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