Media in Review: Jubilee
Well, I picked this up because I saw it on the upcoming section of the Switch eShop and I ended up 100%ing the game in a single session by accident. I guess that means its good?
Jubilee is an indie precision platformer with non-linear levels that works surprisingly well. It's tempting to call it a Metroidvania because that's the style of level design it employs, but you never get any new powers or keys or anything - the entire game is played with a jump, wall jump, and a midair twirl. And frankly, that simplicity really works in the game's favor. Games like these can be really hard, but there's really only one place in the whole game that I seriously got stuck, and it was in the secret final level that is supposed to be bullshit hard. The mechanics, frankly, don't allow for the game to be super difficult without descending into "lol you need to land on this exact pixel and jump this exact height", a trap that it deftly avoids.
Broadly, I don't have a lot to say about it? The music is nice, the checkpoints are frequent, the map is well done, and you can fast travel more or less whenever you want. If I had any real complaints about the game, they are limited entirely to length - I stumbled into the "bad" ending in about 40 minutes, and took a little over 2 hours to find everything and get the good ending. There is a NG+ you can unlock by finding all the teleportation shrines, and the new character has ice physics but goes faster and does a sick kickflip instead of a twirl. For $10, I feel quite satisfied with my purchase. Maybe you'd feel otherwise, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted something a little meatier.