Juiced! Review
I was surfing around on Twitter searching for indie games to do for a let’s play. I came across a game called Juiced and that got me interested and luckily, I got the a free copy of the game from the developer of the game Timothy Van der Hoeven and since I love platform games, I have played through the whole game and have decided to review it as I promised the dev.
So Is this game worth it?
Please note that this is my honest opinion about the game and I am not paid for this review. So with that said, let us begin with the review.
Story:
The story starts with Tiko who comes across a planet that has a treasure in it. Tiko decides to go to the planet. He soon discovers that someone else is interested in the treasure and attempts to get the treasure back, only for Tiko to end up having his shipwrecked. Tiko eventually realizes that the treasures that he wants contain three guardians that are sealed and for the world to remain in peace, he must restore them all before it falls into the wrong hands.
The story is quite good for a platformer. While it may have generally weak humor from the main villains or how the overall cast serves little to no purpose in the overall plot, it never pads the gameplay too much and the story does a nice job with transitioning to the levels.
The only gripe is that there is not a lot of expressions that Tiko shows in the entire game and rarely do any of the characters except for the villains show other kinds of expressions that could have helped make the story a bit more engaging.
Graphics:
Graphics are a bit of a hit and miss. If you are into video game engines, you would assume that at first glance, the game is made in Game Maker Studio 2 and you would be correct. However, that isn’t to say that every game from Game Maker will look average but it does give the impression of the visuals looking rather average.
There is not a lot of vibrant detail for the level design, enemies simply fade out upon being defeated and the particle effects are not very impressive.
On the other hand, the game does give the feeling of playing classic MS-DOS-based games that also do not offer many graphical details for the most part. The game also offers a lot of variety as a platformer having levels ranging from grass, forest, cities, and even having a level around a pirate ship.
Music:
The overall music is decent. It has a mix of feeling energetic, jazzy, and pop. However, the music is not very memorable due to having only a set limit of instruments played that can’t capture the rhythm of the levels. As a result, some of the songs played in levels do not necessarily capture the feel of the level theme which is always important in a platformer game.
Gameplay:
The game plays as you would expect in a straightforward platformer. You play as Tiko who can move around, jump and double jump through platforms, and of course, get collectibles like fruits, diamonds, stars, fairies, and coins.
Enemies can be defeated either by jumping on them enough times or by using one of the powerups.
The weapons are with limited ammunition and are most helpful for defeating enemies. However, since enemies easily get defeated in one or two hits most of the time, weapons are only helpful for defeating some enemies that are either at the top or those that are almost impossible to bop on.
This means that it doesn’t matter what weapon is used besides giving a different result, like making an enemy be stuck in a bubble to be killed, or throwing darts and nuts that are otherwise the same thing making the weapon use a hit and miss.
Fortunately, some weapons are unique. Like the blue dog which can eat weak enemies or a magic hat that creates random results but these weapons are limited and hard to get and I will explain it later on.
The powerups are a different story and are fun to use. Like the Juicebar that increases your health or the coin magnet that attracts coins to you easily. They do not last forever which makes them harder to restock unlike the weapons.
As for the collectibles, collecting enough of the fruits allows you to be briefly “Juiced!” which makes you invincible for a brief period till the fruit bar drops down. Defeating enemies gives out coins that can be used to buy weapons and powerups from vending machines.
Diamonds grant you access to a bonus level from a salesman who you also need to find. The bonus levels are short, fun, and most importantly, give you five extra lives if you get all of the hundred colored balls. A Star can only be obtained by bouncing on a blue alien constantly till it takes you to it. Fairies simply restore your health fully and are located mostly next to the checkpoint. And lastly, keys simply open a gift box that reveals a certain object to either explore the level further or find secrets.
Out of all the collectibles that are in the game, the diamonds are the most rewarding to collect as they are well hidden and some of them require thinking out of the box to find them. Whereas the least rewarding is finding one star in each level because there is no challenge in bouncing the blue alien constantly till you reach the star and the star does nothing except serve as means of getting the high score.
At the end of each level, you must face a boss. Most of the time, they are fairly simple to defeat and do not take a lot of time which is good in a straightforward platformer.
The level design is mostly solid as it is simple to explore and generally rewards the player from finding hidden areas that give extra lives, diamonds, and certain powerups from chests and slot machines that are normally hard to get from vending machines.
Occasionally, some levels will add puzzle elements to the mix which are part of the level design’s gimmick. The levels offer a lot of variety which is what you should expect in a platformer. There is one level based on forests that have you bounce on melons, one level has you entering doors in a mansion and one level is about skiing through platforms.
Even with the base game covered, there is still a lot to do. You unlock modes such as Boss rush where you defeat bosses in one round, Yolo where you must complete the entire level in one playthrough without checkpoints, and lastly the time trial where you have to complete the level before the time runs out.
The game also supports two players where you cooperate and complete the levels together. From the sounds of it, the gameplay is solid overall and that would be correct but sadly some glaring flaws prevent it from being solid.
The first problem is that the levels are very long to complete. Granted, the checkpoints are saved points so they do not have to be completed in one sitting. But some of the levels have puzzle elements that can take too long to complete despite them not being overly cryptic, so if you die, you have to do the section all over again which can be frustrating especially during the trial and error level sections like mine cart jumping similar to Donkey Kong Country.
The second problem is how expensive getting weapons and powerups can be. If you are completing the levels in a continued playthrough, this is not much of an issue but if you are to start the level from scratch, getting enough coins to get the needed weapons and powerups is too difficult because you do not get enough of them. This could easily be fixed either by lowering the price for each item from the vending machine or rewarding the player with rare powerups by exploring the levels more frequently.
The last problem is the reward of getting the collectibles. All the game rewards are hats and masks if you complete levels. But if you want to get more hats and masks, you must get a complete high score which involves getting all coins, fruits, diamonds, stars, and defeating all enemies on every level. This can be very problematic because certain collectibles like the coins can be scattered far away from you and can be gone for good, which can force you to start the level all over again.
While it is optional, the reward is rather lackluster instead of offering some other things such as concept art or additional modes. Other nitpicks are how the powerups do not reset their use if you die from a save point while using it. As well as how low the double jump is as it’s hard to reach certain platforms without the right timing.
Conclusion:
So would I personally recommend this game to platform gamers?
Yes!
The graphics and music may not live up to your expectations and the gameplay has a couple of issues but if you can live past that, you end up with a platformer that is nice to play from the start to finish with an interesting story to tell.