JETBOY Reviews

Been a while since I played, but I enjoyed it enough to persevere and finish it.

Saw this on the new releases page for 5$ and said "why not" Turns out it was a pretty good decision. It's a very simple game. Each level has basically the same objective. Bring back a set number of collectibles to the ship and then leave. Each level provides you with a weapon you also have to collect as it spawns randomly in the level most of the time. All of this to some pretty decent tunes. You have a jetpack with fuel that replenishes slowly when on the ground and 3 hit points. There are a few power up and gimmicks like a flying surfboard that has a flamethrower, a space worm that grows longer when it eats enemies or a UFO firing missiles for example. Those you can use yourself once you've killed the current owner I'd say the story mode took me around an hour, but that's because the real meat is in the arcade mode. The story mode gets you accustomed to most enemy types (I encountered unknown ones in arcade) and weapons at a reasonable pace. It also introduces the visual styles you will encounter in arcade mode. The arcade mode is where the sub title "the randomizer of doom" takes all its sense. Every level is entirely randomized. Random enemies, random weapon, random visual style, random ship, random power ups, etc. Sure, sometimes they clash with each other or the ranomizer makes level ludicrously hard but the designer didn't expect anyone to live for long in arcade mode. After all, the "retry" option is "die again". The game is not without issues. One frustrating thing you WILL encounter is that when hiting a sloped wall or a corner you might be VIOLENTLY catapulted in the oposite direction. often throwing you in enemies or hazards. It can be very upsetting especially in some of the hardest levels of the story mode. One other thing is the audio levels. I swear I've taken the "sound effect" option in the audio options as humanly low as possible and some weapons will still blow holes in my eardrums (looking at you 8 way shot) while others were reduced to a whisper. All in all a very quick to pick up retro looking game with a decent level of challenge, good music and a decent replay value for the price.

8/10 Ultimate homage... + Addictive Simple Fun Shooty Psychedelic - Simple Over too soon This is a great way to start a boring day. No remembering what collectables or quest you were on. No equipping the right kit. Just get out there and blow stuff up. There is a fair amount of skill as your jet pac has a charge, but this is a great development on a very simple series of 8 bit games. Short but shooty-sweet.

Largely pretty fun, it's a platform shooter with guns that fire as fast as you can push the button, which I appreciate. The problems I had with this game are twofold; the first being that your jetpack replenishes quite slowly, which is a nuisance but ultimately fine, and the second being the collisions. You'll be jumping through a level and suddenly get bounced into the enemies which are flowing around the stage. It's not a problem in most stages, but unfortunately in the stages where it is a problem, it's a massive problem.

Looks good on screenshots but there is awful enemy spam with jerky unpredictable movement, unavoidable attacks, random spawns inside your hitbox (???), sloppy heavy controls. And the tags are wrong too, this is a dirt simple single-screen shooter. Props for the pixel art I guess. I recommend it to take screenshots and listen to the soundtrack.

Just getting into the point where things get all Lovecraft-ey. I hope this keeps up, because I'm really enjoying having my tail handed to me repeatedly by anything and everything (and a lot of everything) on screen, only for a moment to open up where I turn the tables and progress right into... getting hopelessly stuck on the next level, until it, too, passes. Feel like the 'hints' yo-yo back and forth between patently obvious and unnecessarily unclear, though that's not in itself enough to flip my assessment away from very enthusiastic recommendation.

Very cool arcade shooter with retro aesthetics. Took about 1.5h for the story mode. Arcade mode has some replayability with randomized levels.