Games of the Abstract: Jumping Flash! 2 (1996)

 

Developer: Exact (with MuuMuu)

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

One Player

Originally for: Sony Playstation One

 

Proceeding on from the first 1995 Jumping Flash, the second game does not attempt to break its established template. Instead, as before, a figure is stealing huge chunks off a planet, and playing as a robotic combat rabbit named Robbit, you have to go liberate each one. Things are different here as our original villain, Baron Aloha, is now the victim of this from a Galactus stand-in named Captain Kabuki; Galactus, the planet eating entity of the Marvel comic books, becomes here a very flamboyantly dressed figure here who collects land masses in giant glass jars for his own personal collection. To be honest, Kabuki does not get a lot to stick out; it neither helps when (for example) for the US release of the game, alongside giving Robbit inexplicably a gruff American accent like a cigar chomping grizzled war veteran, he is voiced as fakely camp with a tendency for bad puns. It is telling for Aloha, the victim initially on an asteroid, gets more to do. This is both with the most cut scenes alongside one of his minions, than that for the extra mode, he gets Kabuki to be a minion to end the Robbit. Plot is less an issue here than returning to this franchise, where developer Exact wanted to improve on the graphical prowess of the original game, using the sequel in terms of pushing the original Playstation hardware.

For those who this may be their first knowledge of this franchise, Sony for the Playstation had Jumping Flash before Nintendo's Super Mario 64 (1996) existed, and innovated the solid fundamentals of the 3D platformer. Jumping Flash 2 comes just before Super Mario 64 was released the same year, and before Sony would replace the Robbit with another platforming franchise that would take the crown for their mascot in this field, Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot coming also in 1996. Jumping Flash was inspired in getting around the issues of the new polygonal era of having the original 1995 game being a first person one, which Jumping Flash 2 follows with. Like the original game, if it isn't why fix it, where instead there is a sense of the aesthetic and general appearance of the sequel expanding on issues like draw distance and the general look of these worlds you hop in the air within. Robbit is played through his robo screen, wandering levels but with the more practical method to traverse everything being to use his jumping abilities, the first a hop and the other two. In the ingenious move of the series, the second and third jump leads to your screen looking down at where you land, allowing you to have precise jumping where you know where you will land, and can take huge risks on tiny little fragments of platforms floating over oblivion. The sequel's platforming fundamentals are still solid, so the quality of the game play is still as good as the first game.

As a sequel, this in modern parlance would be downloadable bonus levels, even following the exact template of six worlds, three levels each, and worlds two and four having one interior level each negotiating mazes. You do not need to find the four "EXIT" carrots as the prequel game, but four of Aloha's minions instead before going to the exit platform. Unlike the first game, with the worlds based on the tropes of platform games like a lava world and Egyptian themed ones, this is set around tropical and urban environments, set around Dr Aloha's secret resort planet base. This leads to this being a very unconventional aesthetic with one level being based on a Japanese hot spa, another being a constructions site etc. I had to take a while but it adds a cool touch, and especially with the harder versions in the Extra Mode, they become outstanding at points as much because of the graphical push the sequel has to improve its visuals. The carnival world of the first game returns and is changed into one of the best levels of this franchise as Stage 5-2, a circus level with cannons to be fired from, a minion to collect on a trapeze high wire swing, and running over a giant moving pack of cards. The aesthetic of these games is kept to their delightful best in its playful eccentricities as alongside enemies who are more obstacles in levels, like kiwi birds gliding on parachutes and anthropomorphic burgers. The music by late Takeo Miratsu is still vibrant here as for the first game too.

Were I to think of any flaws with the game, I have to be honest in saying that, if the second sequel was to have come not three years later as it did, the shooter mechanics of this game are starting to struggle and would have needed to be revised for the third game. Robbit despite his ability to squash enemies under him also has access to firepower, and whilst there were enemies in the first game you could not quite hit due to their height above you, there is now the issue that he shares with early first person boomer shooter protagonists that he cannot look up. The shooting mechanics in general feel like they just stay the right side of making Jumping Flash 2 still a fun game, but you see the struggles with this by the time, for the Extra Mode, you are trying to attack the final boss, Captain Kabuki, and wish you could pivot the screen up or have more fire power. The irony is not lost that, for a game which managed to succeed in something like 3D platforming, the one gameplay mechanic which was not the biggest concern was struggling for the second game. It did not however undermine a game I sadly never got to in my youth like the original game, but making up for it now, was worth the wait.