Have you ever experienced a boss battle involving staying alive for a few minutes while being pelted with projectiles and other attacks? Go Go Jump takes that concept and expands it. Our canine star Dylan wants to follow in the footsteps (well, pawprints) of their late father, known to the world as a Jump Master. To achieve their dream, they must acquire eight medals belonging to other anthropomorphic Jump Masters by beating their challenges. These last around five minutes each, and entail jumping over projectiles, dashing into safe zones, and avoiding explosions. If you feel that your reactions are starting to slow with age, be prepared to try, try, and try again.
Presented with crisp, colourful and cartoon-like visuals – and a smattering of modern effects, such as realistic shadows and lighting – Go Go Jump begins with an exposition dump to rival a typical kid’s CGI movie, introducing characters, establishing a premise, and filling in a backstory in a matter of minutes. We’re then presented with a small seaside hub, which populates with your defeated opponents after winning a medal. There are eight challenges to tackle, each ranked in difficulty, and they can be attempted in any order. This means if one is beginning to frustrate, you can always quit and try another. As each challenge only lasts around five minutes in total, you’re never at risk of losing much progress.
The developers have definitely let their imaginations run wild here. I don’t want to spoil all the challenge set-ups, being as creative as they are, but I will detail a few. The first takes place in a warzone where you must leap over incoming tank shells and avoid live grenades all while a hippy giraffe worships a tree caught in the crossfire, with said tree also frequently lashing out. There’s also a challenge outside a dilapidated mansion in which an emo dolphin thrashes around in the fountain outside, forcing you to leap from one pool inflatable to another, and a battle against an emperor penguin that summons minions before emitting rainbow lasers.
While you only have a second – or even less – to react to some hazards, there are often visual or sound prompts, such as a cannon flashing before it fires, or a character hopping just before they jump. There are no randomised elements, making this a case of memorising patterns and reacting with split-second timing – with a few sneaky ideas to catch you off guard. A single hit will see Dylan knocked to the floor, but thankfully, each battle has three checkpoints. Now also seems a good time to clarify that Go Go Jump only lets you jump and move from left to right; there’s no ducking or sliding. And I guess it’s worth mentioning that the controls are responsive. That would’ve been a deal breaker.
Oddly though, there’s no counter to show how many times you’ve failed. On one hand, this is a blessing as the harder stages took me an embarrassing number of attempts. On the other hand, it may have helped encourage faultless runs, ergo extending the replay value.
Beating all eight challenges will take a couple of hours, although in fairness, this does depend on how quick you are to learn patterns. The harder challenges are pretty difficult, so you may want to take a break for a day or two. A few other modes are here to try out, helping to justify the £7.99 price tag – a slightly higher price point than most eastasiasoft titles. Boss Rush gives just eight lives to beat the whole shebang in one shot, Challenge mode tasks you with avoiding a set number of hazards, while Survival has bite-sized arranged missions lifted from the story mode.
It’s the polished presentation that sells the package. The sizeable cast of characters are fully voiced, and each challenge in story mode has a short intro. Music meanwhile plays on short loops, working perfectly with the fact that you’re going to be replaying some sections repeatedly. The tone remains comical and light-hearted throughout despite its challenging nature. The goofy humour won’t be to everyone’s taste though. I’d even go as far to say that the experience as a whole won’t appeal to all and sundry – Go Go Jump may resemble a platformer in screenshots, but in reality, it’s merely a collection of single-screen jumping-based challenges, making it pretty limited in what it can offer. If you’re expecting explorable environments with collectables, you’re barking up the wrong tree. This is an experience based on putting your memorisation and reaction skills to the test, with a few chuckles to be had. It’s a simple idea done well; with the caveat being that it might be too simple to please everyone.
Manning Media’s Go Go Jump!! is out 25th June on consoles. Published by eastasiasoft. It first launched on PC in 2023.