Pumpkin Jack [Xbox]
Developed by Nicolas Meyssonnier, Pumpkin Jack tells the story of Jack, the world’s greatest trickster and con artist who has been brought back to life by the Devil, on the basis of being granted access to the Afterlife if he can complete one simple favour. With his soul stuffed in the skin of a Pumpkin, Jack must find and destroy the Wizard who is trying to lift the Curse of Eternal Night, which The Devil himself released to liven things up in the boring Arc-en-Ciel Kingdom.
Pumpkin Jack looks, and feels, very reminiscent of MediEvil, with decent platforming and plenty of humour. The nostalgia factor definitely has a huge hand in games like this, as playing it evokes many memories from over the years of gaming. The story is enjoyable, with a fairly typical good-vs-evil tale, but this time we’re getting to play as the bad guy - which is always fun.
Visually, Pumpkin Jack uses plenty of colour with a moody, spooky aesthetic that’s inspired by PS2-era graphics. Levels are lit beautifully - in a haunting way - with ambient, glowing lighting from all of the flickering flames, and sudden flashes of lightning illuminating the sky. Enemies come in a range of designs, such as ghostly skeletons and projectile-vomiting bats, and the levels themselves have a decent amount of variety in them - with wide areas to explore, and a bunch of other mechanics utilised such as minecart-tracks and horseback-riding. Boss designs are delightfully creepy, and each provides you with new weapon upon their defeat. With a fantastic, otherworldly soundtrack by Yohan Jager, it has an interesting blend of Nightmare Before Christmas, Banjo-Kazooie and Fable vibes that works perfectly.
Combat is simple, consisting of one attack and a dodge roll that you can use to quickly evade enemy attacks. Different weapons are available to change things up a bit, such as your starting shovel, and a floating, ethereal sword that allows you to float like a phantom, too. As you progress, the weapons you have (and the battles you find yourself in) get slightly more powerful, but not by a huge amount. You have a little buddy crow that can assist during fights, attacking enemies on your command. Your crow also has the ability to gain you access to further areas/remove things that are blocking your path, with a tap of the left bumper. There are certain segments of levels that allow Jack to remove his pumpkin head, and it will sprout its own little legs to complete various puzzles, such as pattern-repeating tasks and bomb-guiding, which mixes things up a bit from the core gameplay, too.
There are collectible Crow Skulls for you to find, with 20 in each of the six levels, that can be used to purchase additional skins from the creepy skin merchant. Some of these Skulls are hidden, and some will be unlocked upon defeating enemies, and a pop-up comes up on screen any time you find one (as well as being visible in the pause menu), so you’ll be able to easily keep track of how many you’re missing. There’s also a Gramaphone hidden in each level, that when interacted with will make Jack do a little dance.
Available on the Xbox Store for £24.99, Pumpkin Jack will give you around 6 hours or so of entertainment, and providing you nab all of the collectibles on your first playthrough, you shouldn’t need to do any backtracking and replaying of levels. It’s not overly challenging, which makes it suitable for most, and whilst it’s rated as a 12 due to ‘Mild Swearing’, I didn’t really notice anything that would stop me from letting the kids have a go. We had a fun time with Pumpkin Jack, and knowing it’s a mostly-solo project is all the more impressive.
In the end, we decided to give Pumpkin Jack the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Have you played Pumpkin Jack yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Headup Games for the Pumpkin Jack Xbox review code!
