Since its release more than ten years ago, “Super Bros: Sword and Magic” EP is still a game worth thinking about, because it completely avoids becoming a game. As one of the first breakthrough iPad games, it uses the platform’s multimedia reputation to roam playfully and rudely in the boundaries between art form, genre and technology. In a way, it is the Legend of Zelda, a story of a wanderer accidentally awakening a skull ghost, and it must be cleared by collecting fragments of the cosmic triangle. But it is also a Twitter, with inner monologues filled with scrolling feeds, and writing is somewhere between decadent arrogance and nonsense of knowledge. This is a field of pixel art composed of zigzag paths and chiseled shadows. It is also a self-mythological avant-garde rock album-by flipping the gramophone disc on the title screen, you can access another dimension. This is also a rhythm game. The puzzles are reminiscent of a garage band, and the boss fights are reminiscent of the UFO DJ dialogue in “The Third Kind of Close Contact”. It has many different and mismatched things, but it always feels complete, especially thanks to Jim Guthrie’s lively and unfathomable electronic music score.
In contrast, Superbrothers’ long-awaited second game is always shaky. A new beginning story that mixes Star Fox and Tacoma, Jett: The Far Shore has fantastic ideas and some brilliant moments, but the moving parts constantly interfere with each other. This is the work of a useful vision in the era of Elon Musk. It sets a non-Western, non-capitalist space program in which religion and science have equal influence. Its world construction is unparalleled-there is an audio language invented by the developer himself, with whimsical and courteous English subtitles (give you a taster, the impact is “impact”, the danger is “chilling”, Losing consciousness is “wandering”). But as the story of settlement on other planets develops, it is strange that there is nothing to say other than raising the risk of imperialism, and its key points are weakened by the sheer deterioration of the game.
It started very promising-not in the cockpit or starship wharf, but in a tent on the grassland. You are beauty, a religious hermit governed by the prophecies of new life on a distant planet-the source of the mysterious “wave of praise”. Saying goodbye to your family, you set off for the launch pad and briefly glimpsed a sparse but caring world that was darkened by ancient wars and the huge cost of the sacred mission to the stars-the beige ocean is full of rusty oil tankers , The solemn hordes of believers sing you farewell. Then you enter artificial hibernation, the clock advances for centuries, and you find yourself descending through the clouds to the new home you predicted. The broad perspective is reminiscent of Wes Anderson and Interstellar. This is a poignant introduction, implying a huge society, but it’s all in memory: as a village chief told you: “We Belongs to the past, you belong to our future”. Spell-bound things-but then you land and everything starts to go wrong.
The main problem with Jett is that it cannot decide what it wants to be. Sword and witchcraft make a surprising connection without somehow losing continuity, this is a tiresome work. In particular, it failed in the tension between arcade flight simulations and lengthy interactive stage shows, although each side of the game has its advantages when judged individually.
On the one hand, you will wander around in the Jett aircraft of the same name, a hovercraft that looks like a dolphin hybridized with a dragonfly-explore the continent, add species to your logs, and help your sleeping comrades on the mothership. On the other hand, you will walk around small enclosed areas, talk to other scouts, and play easy choice-driven stories about survival, community, and the nature of Hymnwave. As anyone who has answered the distress signal in a sci-fi game would have expected, this alien signal is more than listed in the bible, and I am very happy to hear that my fellow explorers work hard to resolve certain dark discoveries that they believe in. Influence.
At the same time, Jettflight has a soothing rhythm: you dive on the contours to collect steam to maintain high speed without overheating your scramjet, and boost or “pop” to climb mountain slopes and interact with sensitive objects. There is a threat ahead, but there is no battle other than using certain ship abilities and terrain variables to scare off angry wild animals. This is a space novel that resolutely opposes conquest. The characters often praise the importance of treading lightly on the earth, although the plot is based on understanding these values to be a bit self-deceptive.
Sometimes, no combat feels more like a missing piece than a prerequisite element for proper exploration. You won’t shoot predators, but you will use hypnotic gas to make them daze, guide them into explosives, or just knock them down with timely pop music-all of this feels aggressive enough, even if it doesn’t involve lasers But this is in line with the broader theme of environmentalism, that unthinked noise can be as destructive as any blatant hostility. This new planet is a huge musical installation, its ecosystem is a collection of reverberations, and its creatures are highly sensitive to harsh sound effects. Just explore in your booming rocket ship, and you will trigger new and unwanted vibrations and ultimately disasters. This element also allows Jett to talk to the universe of swords and witchcraft-another otherworldly plane bound by special frequencies.
It can be fascinating to experience these effects in this field. The trouble is, Jett is always talking about his own nuances. Every new vision, goal, or turn of events will cause lengthy comments from other pilots and Boffin returning to the landing site (beautiful, commendable, silence from beginning to end). The length of the script resonates in the first-person indoor part of the game, where your fellow scouts are drinking soup and talking about divinity and the universe. When applied to things like the role of a booster or how to build a repair kit, it is not so popular. I shouldn’t spend a whole chinwag between the side characters to tell me what color waypoint I am looking for. Usually, when the actor has time to tell me what to do, I have accomplished the goal.
You can’t skip these chats while flying, and occasionally, the game will slow down time and take away camera control to force you to concentrate completely. This is maddening, and a sad consequence is that you increasingly dislike characters who should be decent companions-tenacious, serious but self-deprecating souls, far from the usual stereotypes of space oceans. Especially I began to despise Isao, your co-pilot, so he is the main source of guidance and guidance, he should be your best friend.
Jett occasionally merges its warring parts in a charming way. The transition from the air to the ground brings a lingering thrill, because the landscape of pure colors evolves into swaying flora at close range. In other words, art direction is usually both annoying and exciting. The soft color palette and narrow perspective can make eye-catching screenshots-the gray ocean is pierced by the shimmering cone-shaped formations, and the tree canopy is like embers scattered in the sunrise. However, the game is usually just dull and unclear.
Your spaceship is a small white cross in the middle, like a lander drawn from the arcade simulation of the CRT era and ported to HD without any adjustments. It forms a subtle contrast, reminiscent of the little swordsman below trekking in the dark, but the high point of view is not entirely practical. When making sharp turns, you often forget which direction your boat is pointing, or how tall you are compared to loose rocks and trees that you cannot pass through. Collision with an object will not kill you, but it does put you into landing mode and causes Jett to roll on the surface, just like you enter the swing of something, leaving your teeth on the edge. Even on a 4K screen, the icons of other ships and the colorful reminders of important flora are easy to forget.
Over time, I gradually adapted to Jett’s split style, but I also disliked its settings more and more. The strangeness and independence of the landscape is eroded by a consciousness that, in terms of function, it is a set of creatively redesigned jumping mats, speed circles, and obstacles that need to be moved or crushed. The goals are not exciting, from basic A to B fare to escort missions and weird exercises to drag or lure something. After that, you need to complete such puzzles while dealing with the radiant cover that overheats the scramjet, making evasion tricky. Radiation forces you to look for shade behind canyons or hills, so there will be more chances of facial claw collisions. It feels more like something to endure than a raise with good judgment.
Then, due to a surprising lack of rituals, the game was over. Specifically, it ends without showing you the rebirth of the human society you have been working on, without explaining the fate of certain characters, and without in-depth research on the exact origin of the dangers that you awakened by stepping on this planet. Instead of closing, you are asked a question: Is your species worth living here, or should you allow yourself to be “forgotten and transcended”? Or should you “stumble upon it” with no certainty?
Assuming there is no other ending that I haven’t discovered — I can think of some possibilities, depending on how much you pay attention to certain mushrooms — I strongly suspect that the developers are running out of time before shipping. However, whether intentionally or unintentionally, this anti-climax is suitable for the anti-imperialist nature of the story, because it runs counter to the nature of most space exploration simulation games. In these simulation games, the world exists to find secrets, and the future is always Belongs to the player. It has not been solved in a good way, and I cannot say about the awkward mix of game styles. There is no doubt that Jett is a work that needs to be reviewed outside of the review conditions, but it doesn’t feel like a game I will think about in 10 years.