Jumplight Odyssey Preview
Video games sometimes feel like they are in an arms race for the most realistic graphics. That’s why I’m relieved whenever a game like Jumplight Odyssey comes along. Not only does it look like a very specific retro anime style, but it is also a game deeply committed to its aesthetic. With a strong sense of identity and some fun gameplay, Jumplight Odyssey has the potential to be a cult hit but, there’s a way to go before the gameplay can equal its style.
The Bridge Is Yours
What I played of Jumplight Odyssey felt more like a proof of concept than a full game- which wasn’t a surprise, a message from the devs says as much when you load the game up. Battleship Yamato seems to be the guiding aesthetic light. The colors are bold, the curving lines are gentle, and you can juuuuust barely maybe see an old degraded VHS filter. You’ll see elements of Voltron and Gundam Wing in there too, it’s great.
What you are doing, is managing an enormous spaceship. You are the captain/princess of a people sent into exile when their planet was destroyed by the evil Admiral Voltan. The objective is to get the princess and her people to the Forever Star, a mythical place where they will be safe. But the journey won’t be an easy one, etc. Wow, there are shades of Battlestar Galactica in there too.
The spaceship, where most of the game takes place, is big. Not just big, it feels friggin’ enormous. Every function of the ship is there for you to see, and you need to make repairs and oversee operations to get the ship functioning in peak condition. One of the decks has been totally annihilated and it’s there you’ll have the most freedom to build something imaginative. The building and management mechanics remind me strongly of the Evil Genius games. They both make you consider how close to the action you should position your bunk beds.
Battlestar Yamato
Jumplight Odyssey is trying to put a unique spin on that genre. There’s also an entire procedurally generated space opera mechanic. Every member of your crew is a simulated character, and all of them have relationship drama with each other. Plus you’ll run into space anomalies, or you’ll have to send some crew members on an away mission. That mix is the perfect recipe for a good season of Star Trek (which is also making a major comeback in gaming). It sounds deeply replayable.
Unfortunately, a lot of that promise is still being worked on. You can see that the building mechanics and interface are totally fine. But something with the AI and balance feels off. I tried building a console in my engine room and watched as dozens of crew members came down to take a peak at the work in progress. Then went off wandering off through the halls. I misplaced a door, but no one ever obeyed my command to demolish it. The hydroponics room just continued to have weirdly identical parallel doors.
More Fraternization Than the Normandy
I do not feel able to judge the part of Jumplight Odyssey that sounds most exciting to me, the relationship system. It’s in there- click on any crew member and see how they feel about everyone else. But right now it’s a random soup of nonsense. Relationships don’t consistently go two ways, and I found some alarming news. Clicking on a random engineer I saw that they had a troubling relationship with the one non-human member of the crew, a pig mascot. This human saw the pig as their lover. But navigate over to the pig, and it felt like it was just in a casual relationship! What? Don’t get me wrong, that sounds like a wild story. But I have the feeling it wasn’t an intentional one.
On top of that, there were regular clipping errors and pathfinding problems, the kinds of things you’ll find in a lot of early-access games. I caught the pig (that pig again!) trying to use human animations, and in doing so contorted into a shape that belonged to neither man nor beast. I have seen things Man Was Not Meant to Know in Jumplight Odyssey.
Distant Constellations
With such a bright, appealing style, I am committed to playing a good version of Jumplight Odyssey. The game feels like it was bespoke and crafted for me. I’m on in on management games, and managing a big ‘ol spaceship is the dream. The rogue-lite mechanics mean that this is a story you can replay again and again. Everyone knows the best episodes of Farscape are the ones where the crew breathes in some alien gas and is overcome with trippy horniness. That seems to be the goal of Jumplight Odyssey. That sounds like a game I want to play.
It’s not right to damn a game based on a work in progress, so I want to make it clear that is not my goal here. If you were attracted to Jumplight Odyssey because you saw that art style and needed to learn more… hold on tight. In this state, the game doesn’t feel like the best version of itself. It’s not anywhere close to being all that it can be. But the devs are saying all the right things. They’ve already shepherded a weird stylish game into the world: Armello. Based on past success and future promise, Jumplight Odyssey is a game you should keep locked into your RADAR, or um, DRADIS.
***Jumplight Odyssey provided by the publisher***
