Games of the Abstract: Jumping Flash! (1995)

 

Developer: Exact, Ultra

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

One Player

Originally for: Sony Playstation One

 

For today, we are going into my childhood, and even as someone who raises the flag for the Sega Saturn, even I have to admit that the original Sony Playstation even without the Japanese exclusives is a fascinating machine of experimentation, charisma, and new borders being crossed in genres, and this particular game Jumping Flash is all three at once. A game I had in my youth, Jumping Flash was also significant as a game from 1995, in the early era of the Playstation but also before Super Mario 64 (1996) was release, making it one of the games to attempt a three dimensional platformer game before Nintendo’s flagship game created the standard to attempt to reach. I have to credit Jumping Flash, having not grown up a Nintendo 64 kid, and having gone back to some three dimensional games in multiple genres, for having stuff we could have still learn from just in terms of the camera, something we could have been spared bad examples of even into the sixth generation of consoles that came immediately afterwards.

In a sci-fi cartoon world, an evil astrophysicist named Dr. Aloha has effectively done what is a one scene joke in an episode of Futurama years later, about a mad scientist who stole all the world landmarks and put them all on a tourist beach of his own. The difference here is that Aloha has compromised the planet itself, stealing whole landmasses and leaving cheese wheel like holes in the Earth, and refuses public entry to the locations stolen. Our hero, befitting the openly cartoonish tone, is a sentient military rabbit robot named Robbit, and here is where there is still uniqueness to the game in how this figures out all the perils of the now three dimensions. It clearly has taken influence from vehicle simulations, at a time mech robot games for the PC were popular, and the engine was inspired by an earlier project by Exact called Geograph Seal (1994), a first-person mecha platform-shooter for the Sharp X68000 computer which looks like the cousin of Jumping Flash, only to have been evolved with the help of fellow developer Ultra until we got the game also released on Western Playstations. Robbit, unless you clear a level or unfortunately fall off the stage, losing a life, is seen entirely from his perspective in his cyber HUD, having to travel the first two levels for each world collecting four "EXIT" carrots in a time limit before also having to reach the exit platform. Platforming is important, and you can jump on enemies to destroy them with the advantage as a mechanical battle machine of immense weight, rather than as an Italian plumber who is just human, but you are also armed with ranged fire power. These are simple but effective, between the normal shot and collectable secondary weapons based on celebratory objects of doom like Roman Candles. Piloting Robbit is with ease, even if this is a time before dual analogue Playstation controllers and the move towards sticks as mandatory for controllers in general.

One thing we could have learnt more from, even in third person games, is how this gets around platforming. You have a triple jump, and when you reach the second and third, able to transverse higher with help from platforms in the sky, the camera is focused on your ground below with a prominent shadow to help focus on where you are to land. This is a godsend as, with three islands (levels) per world, the non-boss levels start to introduce precarious platforms floating over oblivion, including those you need to get over to reach EXIT carrots to complete the level. It becomes, even before the Extra Mode changes, a game of hunting down the carrots to unlock the exit, the enemies less a concern (as you do not get points either) than obstacles. Especially when you get to two enclosed maze levels, one within a pyramid and one underwater, it is the case especially in the Extra Mode where you are trying to use the radar and/or memory to track down the last carrot under a strict time limit, clearing out the way enemies who could drain your health quickly for the sake of practicality. Bosses are closer to the shooter genre in defeating, but as I learnt in my youth in the one example of being actually good at a game, and using your game's great mechanics to your advantage, staying as much bouncing on their head or close approximation to this, minding the few who realize to fire projectiles upwards, is the wiser path to success.

It is a short game, as a weird hybrid of this fifth generation of arcade-like games but with saving your process possible now, but I find this is a greater pleasure for not feeling pointless long for the sake of it. I was able to play the first run in just an hour, and appreciated that, more so as the Extra Mode unlocked is a recommend. It has a slight plot as a game, only a few funny animated scenes and the proper ending unlocked in the Extra Mode just being able to reach the end credits, but it changes a lot with interest. You have a lax time limit in the first run, forced to search and figure out where every Exit Carrot could be, using this as an advantage as the Extra Mode forces you to gun it in far less time, with replaced areas for the carrots to find them. The two enclosed levels get the most drastic changes which really ups the challenge, so it is a credit to the two development teams in terms of making a difficulty change actually have weight even if you are still using the same assesses. The bonus levels, unlocked in the first stage of each world in each mode, are just there for additional lives if you complete them, having to destroy all the balloons in a strict time limit, but even these change per the normal and extra mode, adding to the gameplay.

Also helping is the huge aesthetic joy of this game. For a fifth generation polygon graphic game from the nineties, for the first days of the Playstation, it still looks good as a vibrant and openly artificial work. The tone is shown in the world cut scenes when you complete them, where Mr. Aloha's beaten minions, tiny island shaped creatures, are getting drunk in an izakaya tavern, not hiding at all how this was of its country of origin. Each level likely fed into my ideas of video games having an inherent approximation of dream logic and dreams, dioramas floating in space which follows basic tropes - winter level, Egyptian level - but have their own vibrant model-like nature. The best examples are World 3, a carnival world, and World 5, a metropolis. Carnival world has sentient giraffe enemies, rainbow colored conveyor belts in the air, hot air balloons to hop on as platforms, and a general sense of whimsy where the boss is a genie materializing various limbs from a set of giant spinning tea cups of death. World 5, Level One, is literally happening through an approximation of a Japanese city, with robot construction employees built into their jackhammers, and giant roads in the sky to traverse to most of the platforms. Level 2 is the closet we may get to a kawaii depiction of Blade Runner's nocturnal metropolis; the flame jet platforms to avoid jumping on when activated and the giant pyramid in the middle of it are all what led to the comparison. Adding to this is the work of the late composer Takeo Miratsu, who also worked in anime. He had a weird start to say the least, composing music for Violence Jack: Hell's Wind (1990), one of the least problematic of an infamous trio of anime that, in their uncut formats than the censored versions with a ridiculous English dub, would make even edge lords bleach white in the face. Thankfully his career was very dynamic until his unfortunate passing in 2006, including Saikano (2002) (She: The Ultimate Weapon for its Western release), a very unconventional heartbreaker about an apocalyptic war, and a romance between a high school student and his girlfriend, who was turned into a biomechanical war machine, and he composed all the music for the Jumping Flash franchise as well. His career, working on straight-to-video anime and Playstation One games, makes him a perfect figure in terms of nineties nostalgic music to binge on, not even factoring in how he was one member of Twin AmadeuS, alongside violinist Ayumu Koshikawa, providing music for Konami's Beatmania IIDX rhythm game series. Suffice to say that his music was a huge part of my love of the game back as a child, and thankfully it is still strong stuff to this day.

Jumping Flash was a complete success in terms of accomplishing what it set out to do, making its obscurity nowadays quite tragic. Despite unfortunately being a micro-console criticized in terms of its emulation of games and quality, the micro version of the Playstation Classic Sony released in 2018, with twenty games on the machine, included Jumping Flash even for the Western version, which showed there was a legacy to this game in terms of fondness. Jumping Flash is a game to be proud of, and to keep in release, more so as, whilst likely more successful in Japan, clearly it managed to have some interest in mind to the sequels it gained. We got the 1996 Jumping Flash 2 in the West, but not Robbit Mon Dieu (1999), which juggled more story with eccentric mini-missions around the premise that a military machine like Robbit is not always out for life threatening crises, like defending a vegetable patch. This is a game, least the first one, worth preserving as a production which still feels fresh and without some of the crippling flaws of its era of game innovation, a childhood favorite which stood tall not through mere nostalgia.