Jump King

Despite how simple Jump King looks, the game isn’t all that easy. It takes a lot of patience, discipline, trial and error, and above all, self-control to reach your desired goal. Nothing comes for free here, and the game won’t forgive you for almost any mistake. That’s why we recommend it to anyone who loves a challenge and isn’t easily flustered. And if you meet only one, or even none, of these criteria, we still recommend the game to you. Maybe you’ll discover hidden qualities and enrich yourself culturally. For us, the game certainly enriched our vocabulary, adding brand-new gems to our collection of swear words to express our frustration every time we slammed ourselves into the ground.

Jump King is an excellent experience in soul-crushing difficulty and nightmarishly precise platforming. It's the type of game that won't be for many people, but for the small percent that craves this kind of experience, they won't be disappointed. The somewhat imprecise nature of your jumping often frustrated me and diluted the pure player skill needed to clear the game, but it still ends up being a solid test of your patience and platforming skills.

Jump King relies on its challenging platforming mechanics but lacks unique elements to stand out. Its pixel art style and punishing difficulty may appeal to some but not everyone.

Difficulty should always work in unison with the fun factor of game, and not overshadow it, which is exactly what happens in Jump King, where trying to "guess" how much power you need to apply to your jumps is combined with a level design that doesn't tolerate failure, with the end result being constant aggravation. The smoking hot babe at the top isn't worth the trouble.

"Just jump up, it gets better."

Failures aside, the challenge was fun and inviting and tested your patience.

Jump King comes together as a totally competent platformer with enjoyably simple mechanics, where the only major downside comes in with why the game was made in the first place. Designing a game in which the point is to have the player repeatedly fail, forcing several restarts, is inherently not a good way to go about things, but if you can take it as a personal challenge between yourself and the game, then this platformer offers one of the more unique experiences on the Nintendo Switch.

There's a lot to be said for keeping it simple, and this game is a testament to that. Jump King only tries to do one thing, but it does it so incredibly well without compromising the challenge.

Although frustrating and oppressive by design, Jump King brings a level of satisfaction in victory rarely found in gaming. The varied level design and sheer amount of content within will provide hours of falling for those with the patience to continue.

OK, so here we get down to the bare bones basics...