- John Bush
Game Review #403: JumpHead: Battle4Fun! (Nintendo Switch)
Reviewed By: The Waffinator
Developer: JumpHead Team
Publisher: Light Maze
Genre: Action, Arcade, Fighting, Platformer
Release Date: 07.19.2019
Price (At Time Of Review): $8.99
Buy JumpHead: Battle4Fun! from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
Battle4Sleep
With so many indie games on the market it's not always easy to fine the ones that offer a lot of fun, or more importantly the ones that give you good replay value. It seems like a lot of indie games are great but once you played them once where do you go from there? Well that's why you have us at JPSwitchmania to find these gems and share some feedback for all of you. Now one thing that makes a solid game for me is something that you can pick up over and over and always get some good replay and fun out of. Don't get me wrong there are many games that once you have played them they die off, but are still fun to revisit, but that's not exactly great replay value. To me replay value and “revisiting" are two different topics but that's not why we are here. We are here to review new (or new-ish) video games.
A hidden treasure that I recently got my hands on is JumpHead: Battle4Fun~ Now why exactly is this game a hidden gem? Well for starters it's almost a month old and I haven't seen it much via social networks, now does that mean the game isn't good? No, that means the game isn't getting enough recognition. So what makes this game so fun, so unique? What makes it stand out to compared to all the other indies on the market? Well for starters it is really addicting. When I first picked it up I was like this game will get old quick, and about 2 hours later on a very late work night I found myself having to force myself to put it down so I could get enough sleep.
Battle4Skill
The game itself is super easy to grasp, there are 4 players and you just want to jump on other players’ heads and avoid getting stomped yourself. It reminded me of Super Mario needing to stomp some goombas. A lot of the levels gave a Super Smash Bro feel as well. What I mean by that is there are 30 different levels, and they all have different backdrops with the platforms you can jump from being laid out differently. A lot of the levels had areas that you can fall off of the level and lose a point from your overall score AKA suicide. Another aspect of the game that had a Super Smash similarity was the score keeping. Every time you bounced on someone's head you would get a point and every time you got jumped on or committed suicide you would lose a point. The rounds are two minutes each so the player with the highest net tally at the end of the two minutes wins. Not trying to brag but I haven't lost a match yet.
Now that we got the levels down let's touch base on another cool aspect of the game. Every time you go to play a round you can pick a different game mode (almost like round rule) that will add some excitement to each round. There's a dark mode which makes it so you have to jump around in the dark, laser mode which makes it so random lasers shoot and can kill you, or even victim mode where every 10 seconds a new victim is picked and during being the victim you can’t pick up power ups. There are 13 different rules In all. So far victim mode is my favorite. Power ups? Did I just say power ups? That's right this game offers 26 different items/power ups to help you or hurt you in your battle for glory!
Battle4Controllers
I don't know what's easier with this game, the rules of how to play or the controls. You are jumping around and trying to land on people's heads. So you have your left D-pad or thumbstick for direction, B for jumping and in the midst of a jump you can push R to perform a dash which helps you move away quicker or move towards someone quicker. Now I find a lot of the basic jump and go games a little frustrating usually because of either being too sensitive with the controls or not sensitive enough and usually hate jump style games for this reason. However in JumpHead the overall control input sensitivity was very smooth and enjoyable.
Battle4YourSenses
The audio and visuals of this game are very entertaining and fit the overall party and fun theme. The bouncing sound effects (boing) and jumping reminded me a lot of the 16-bit style games - again Mario for some reason - and when you land on someone's head it makes a popping noise which sounded a lot like a balloon pop. There are several different songs that will play in the background as you are battling it out that scream party and fun.
The overall graphics are fun. There’s plenty of character customization options to keep it fresh and fun. I had a habit of going with a Hulk (The Incredible Hulk) theme for my character - green body and purple shorts. The only thing I wish were a little different is when you are playing it was zoomed in a little more. My favorite background is the unicorn; it reminded me a lot of Robot Unicorn Attack and I am a big fan of that game.
Battle4Finale
This is one of those hidden treasure games. Honestly if I was never given this game for review I probably would've never heard about or played it and I'm glad I did. Like I said I pick it up for short plays and find myself playing longer than anticipating. It’s fast-paced, chaotic, and fun. This game is not one to be overlooked and def a blast for all ages. Between the fun cartoonish characters to the fun party music this game is a hidden gem and needs to be out in the world.
Score: 8.5/10
Buy JumpHead Battle4Fun from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
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*Review Code Provided by Keymailer