The Force Is Strong With This One
Intro
Gee, this is my first serious review in a really long time. And the ones made before were pretty much horrible and way too short. Forgive me if this isn't how reviews are done anymore :P
Pre-Thoughts
I've never heard of aah363 before so I can't really say anything about his games. The thumbnail looks interesting, though the map seems pretty simple.
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Review
Graphics
Play Jade and you'll know why I started my review with the art side of the game (check out these screenshots if you can't be bothered: http://i.imgur.com/6ixa2Td.png http://i.imgur.com/FmEHwGW.png http://i.imgur.com/m3tqjcj.png )
I don't think I've ever seen a platformer that would be as visually stunning as this one. From the circuit board through the stormtroopers to the droids and spaceships... They just look as good as Sploder graphics get. I love the art style of this game and I appreciate the effort that must have been put into performing a nearly total conversion of all of the visuals of the platformer creator. Great job.
Gameplay
The first thing that made me think "Oh, this game might not only look good but also be fun to play" was the part where you had to use the turret to shoot down the Rebel spaceships (I know nothing about Star Wars, forgive me if I'm wrong :P). Using a blocked Hovership vehicle as a turret was quite creative, so despite the extremely low difficulty of that segment (that's quite a con, but it didn't really affect my experience overall) of the game it gave me hope that Jade's level design will be as imaginative as the beginning. I wasn't really disappointed. Sure, it could use some love, but it's pretty good.
The enemy placement is good as well - nothing revolutionary, just good.
The only real complaint I have - the elevator part was quite a nuisance... but it's not really aah363's fault that they are SOOOOOO slow. He might have just used some platforms to jump on instead of the elevators but the turrets still provided some minimal challenge so I didn't get too bored there.
Puzzles
Well... They were fun, but you won't really find anything new here. The graphics - with the help of your imagination - are once again what made them better. Using the Force to manipulate a droid to unlock a door was way more fun than just using a PowerGluv (I think that's what it's called) to drag a ball to a PermSwitch.
In general - you can clearly see that the puzzles are most likely inspired by other games on Sploder but they are well chosen and usually fitting to the situation in the story.
Storytelling
The plot in Jade is a simple story inspired by Star Wars. It's not very serious or deep, but that's not what you should expect from a game like this anyway! It was fun, easy on your brain and should please most Star Wars fans. Being a Jedi on Sploder has most likely never been as fun as in this platformer!
I especially liked the use of Stormtroopers, the Holocron (is that what it was? sorry if it wasn't) and how you could feel the oh-no-we're-under-attack atmosphere of the game.
Did I like this game?
Yes. It wasn't the best I've seen but it was very fun.
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Scores
Overall: 7.9/10 - Good
Recommended? Yes
Did it deserve the feature? Yes
(SCALE: 1 to 2 - terrible, 2 to 3 - bad, 3 to 5 - not bad, 5 to 7 - decent, 7 to 8 - good, 8 to 9 - very good, 9 to 10 - exceptional)
[ /* means half a point ]