I must admit that if Jump King did not have the awesome subtitle of There Is A Smoking Hot Babe At The Top, it could have flown by me. The subtitle along with the fact that many steamers are losing their minds with this game really did make me want to go and check it out.
How to Download Jump King
To download the game for the platform of your choice, click on the Download button at the end of the review. If you like jumping platform games, check out also our review of Icy Tower.
The Game Review
There is not much in the way of story in this game. You are the Jump King (who looks like he could be buddies with Shovel Knight) and you want to save and hook up with the babe at the top of the world. That is all there really is in terms of story and while it is a funny premise, I do wish the game had a bit more story as I think it could have been pretty humorous if it did.
The visual style is one that you have seen a million times before. They have used the 16-bit style and it looks great. The real draw in terms of the visuals are those beautiful backgrounds which are hand-drawn. The game has a nice amount of variety to it ranging from dark dungeon-like screens to icy caverns so you are always kept guessing as you progress through the game.
The point of Jump King is to jump to the very top of the world to rescue the hot chick at the top. Each screen is its own “level” I guess you could say and is filled with platforms for you to jump on. I know that on paper this sounds like it would be very, very easy to do. However, Jump King is far, far from easy.
The “platforming” in this game is something that takes a while to get used to. YOU can power your jump and this is something you have to do. The longer you hold the button, the higher you jump, but you cannot take control when you are jumping! This means that you have to nail the perfect jump power to make the jump. It takes a while to get the hang of and it can be frustrating!
The worst is when you hit one of the slides! When you fall and you will fall a great deal. You can fall to the screen below if you are lucky. If you have well and truly screwed up, you can end up all the way back at the bottom! I found this to be the kind of game where you need to get in a Zen-like experience to get as high as you can. Thankfully the save feature is very, very fair so you do not have to beat it in one sitting.
Tha,t in all honesty, is all there really is to the game. It sounds simple and shallow, but it is kind of addicting. You always want to get to the next screen and swear you will stop playing when you do. However, you get such a rush when you nail a tricky jump that you want to try and do just one more, but one more often leads to ten…. Or you falling back down several screens.
They have released some free DLC which is great. However, as much fun as I have had with Jump King, I just wish it had a bit more content. I am not sure what more I want as the gameplay is fine. I think it is more in terms of “personality” I wish the game had more of a story as I think there is something fun here just waiting to burst out.
