If I were to ask you what the most common action in gaming was, you’d say jumping, right? The humble jump has been at the foundation of video games for decades, especially the ever popular platformer where a very well known plumber puts this skill to very good use.
Enter Go Go Jump!!! then, a game all about jumping and, well, not much else really.
That’s right, in Go Go Jump!!! you can move side to side along a 2D plane, and jump. That’s all there is to it. You play as Dylan the Dog who is on a quest to become the greatest jumper of them all. To do this, he needs to do battle with Jump Masters to earn badges. Dylan even proclaims he needs to “collect ‘em all” at one point. I just hope the Nintendo lawyers aren’t reading this.
Anyhow, familiar or not, the setup gives you an excuse to take on these opponents one by one. The cast is fully voice acted and it’s all very tongue in cheek. The anthropomorphic cast more often than not fall into caricature and some are actually quite irritating to listen to come to think of it.
Before heading into each battle, you can hear a short background intro to the opponent you are about to face off against, if you wish. Each encounter is split into three parts signified by some back and forth dialogue. It’s a simple enough premise: move and jump to avoid obstacles until your enemy is out of moves, and you are declared victorious. Each trial is a test of your jumping skill, and you’ll be rewarded with a coveted badge.
Obstacles will come at you from both sides of the screen, above, below and from the background. There’s enough cosmetic variation between trials, but it doesn’t impact the structure of the game in any meaningful way. When I say jumping is all there is to it, I mean it.
Timing your move is a challenge in Go Go Jump!!!, and it’s actually pretty difficult to gauge. In fact, I died an awful lot before I figured out when it was best to hit the jump button. This was trial and error, and in this sense it’s a good job the sequence is exactly the same every single time.
Thankfully dying just zaps you back to the start of the segment, so you aren’t punished too harshly. However, I couldn’t really get into a good flow with Go Go Jump!!! because of how difficult it is to judge incoming obstacles. Some seemingly come out of nowhere giving you no time to react, and it feels only with prior knowledge of them are you able to effectively complete the trial. Without much warning it is hard to react to what is coming, meaning things do, at times, feel unfair. On the flip side, knowing the sequence because I had died several times on the way through the trial sucked the enjoyment out of things somewhat.
Trials are ranked out of three stars for difficulty, but I didn’t find this a good indicator at all. It all came down to the hazards themselves, some apparently low difficulty trials were very tricky indeed to begin with.
The main game is made up of these trials, but there are also other ways to play. Boss Rush, Challenge and Survival modes fill out the menu and give the impression there’s a hefty amount of content included in Go Go Jump!!! However, this is not what it seems.
Let’s take Boss Rush for example. This puts you up against each Jump Master one after the other. The problem here is that the main mode is purely made up of these battles, except they are just split into different trials. This means that both Boss Rush and the main Story mode play pretty much exactly the same.
Sadly, it doesn’t change with the other modes either. Challenges see you jumping and avoiding a number of specific hazards, but you’ll come across these in the main story anyway. Survival tasks you with going as long as possible without taking a hit, but again it’s a carbon copy of every other mode you’ll play.
Go Go Jump!!! is very easy to pick up and play, and suitable for gamers of all ages. It offers a certain level of challenge, although I’m not convinced it’s for the right reasons. As a result, once you clear the main story mode (and coincidentally bag yourself most of the Gamerscore on offer), there is very little reason to carry on playing. Sadly this is the epitome of a one trick pony.
Go Go Jump!!! falls short of its potential thanks to its unique selling point doubling up as its achilles heel.
