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I’d covered Jumping Flash 2, but not the original, owing to its... oldness. I mean
old old. Big-*** Playstation case old. So when I found this Clarkean monolith wedged
inside Felicity from Worcestershire’s care package to the underwater... um, intergalactic...
strained Star Ocean reference, I knew I had to give it a whirl. Back to a time when the
evil Baron Aloha was a bad guy. Back before that weird tutu-wearing banana showed up.
Back when the Pittsburgh Pirates had only amassed THREE consecutive losing seasons.
This is what 3D platforming looked like 17 years ago. And, frankly... it still holds
up.
As the frenetic yet quaint opening footage informs us, our great hope is in fact a white
rabbit... robot... thing, deployed into a series of three-stage worlds, being terrorized
by the festive Baron and his squid-like Muumuu army. In order to progress from one stage
to the next, you need to acquire the four booster jets bearing the letters E, X, I,
and T (shaped like carrots, of course) and land on the Exit platform, though how you
go about doing that is completely up to you. The most revolutionary aspect of Jumping Flash
is its sense of freedom, letting you jump, bounce, shoot, and stomp wherever you like...
so long as you don’t fall off the world. Impeding you is a slew of low-poly monsters,
like something out of a coloring book, usually perched precariously on exactly the platform
you need to occupy. Fortunately, your Robbit Rabbit Robot is outfitted not only with double-barrel
blasters, but can get equipped with a wide array of fireworks, including bombs, roman
candles, rockets, and thankfully not those weird black things that grow into creepy snakes
and smell weird.
But what if we were to render the theme to Firefly moot and ACTUALLY take the sky from
you? With just one action, the game goes from platformer to corridor shooter, maintaining
exactly the same mechanics but drastically changing the gameplay. It’s a perfect example
of thinking outside the box... even if the net result is a feeling of more boxed-in-ness.
Add to that target-heavy bonus stages that reward extra lives, and it becomes clear that
Jumping Flash was a strong early argument for 3D platforming. Certainly illustrates
the diversity of the concept. I actually feel that Jumping Flash is a bit better for landing
jumps in 3D than its successor, thanks to the visibility of that huge freakin’ shadow
you give off. Apparently it’s always high noon in space, just for your convenience!
And then Mario 64 happened and kinda steamrolled it. But you can go back and relive the magic
for yourself, via the PlayStation Network. Or by tracking down one of the huge-box versions
and renting yourself a forklift.