This is a game I'd heard about ages ago, but had never thought of playing until recently. I picked it up for cheap the other day, and today seemed like a good a day as any to play through it. Despite the wonky controls, I was very happy with the time I spent with Jumping Flash, and it was a fun 1.5-ish hours of my time going through the Japanese version of this iconic early PS1 title.
The evil Baron Aloha is attacking the planet, and it's up to the robot Robbit to stop him! It's a fairly short adventure through just 18 levels, some of which are just boss fights, but what's here is good. You're either killing a boss, or you're hunting through a level for 4 carrot-shaped rocket pods to unlock the exit to the next stage. After beating a boss, you get a cute cutscene of the little squid-creature controlling it going to a little Japanese-style dive bar to complain to its buddies how it just got its butt kicked X3. The game's design is very lighthearted and silly, which serves it well. The overall presentation is really nice on the whole as well. There isn't a ton of music in the game, but there are a lot of really great tracks that I'll definitely be adding to my MP3 player before long. The visual design is also very abstract and cartoonish to fit with the low-polygon necessity of a 1995 PS1 game. The game's controls are fairly clunky, but they're very serviceable (and at times exceedingly clever) given this is a 3D platformer with no analog sticks coming out before the revelation that was Super Mario 64. You control Robbit in a first-person view, with up and down on the D-pad moving you forward and back, and right and left turning you the respective direction. Robbit can also double-jump, and upon doing your second jump, you automatically look down to get a view of your shadow so you'll know just where you're going to land. This is a really clever take on 3D platforming, and it really makes the whole game flow really well. The only real problem I encountered with the platforming is that left and right on the D-pad don't have entirely consistent functions. Sometimes they'll turn you in the mid-air of a double jump, and sometimes they'll simply turn you. It has something to do with your height of where you are in the jump, but it's still annoyingly inconsistent in a pinch. Robbit also comes equipped with lasers (I like to imagine they fire out of his eyes <3 ) as well as special weapons he can launch if he finds special weapons tokens. The combat is fine, and the bosses are good fun, especially as you can also Goomba-stomp enemies by jumping on them to hurt them (this is a really fun thing to try to rush down bosses with). That said, it's a little awkward that you need to hold L1 to stop in your tracks to look around if you wanna aim anywhere other than directly ahead of you (or directly below you, if you're post-double jump), and given that R1, R2, and R3 aren't used at ALL in the default control scheme, the lack of a button you can hold to strafe is kinda difficult to forgive, even if the game is more than easy enough to complete without it. Honestly, your jump-stomps are so good and Robbit can take so much damage that you're better off using your guns as a last resort if you even need to fight at all in the normal levels. Verdict: Recommended. It's not gonna set the world on fire, and it's a bit short, but Jumping Flash is still a really solid game despite how far 3D platforming has come since its release. It's certainly not worth paying an arm and a leg for, but if you can find it for a couple of bucks like I did, it's well worth spending an afternoon with.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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