Jazzpunk Thoughts

I played Jazzpunk yesterday and decided to write a bit about how I felt about the game. This isn't realy like a full fledged review, just my thoughts and opinions on the game. Spoilers ahead.

This game was absolutely bonkers. It was absurd and often random, but in a surprisingly well-done way. Usually I'm not particular fond of random humor, but it works well in this game for a few reasons. First off, it's organized chaos. In a weird sort of way, everything that happens makes sense within the laws of this world. Also it's heavily implied that the player, and presumably everyone, is on drugs through most of the game. A fair amount of the absurdity is very clearly satire, and it's usually done quite well. The other thing is, the randomness doesn't feel like laziness. This is my biggest problem with random humor most of the time. Someone can't think of something actually funny, so they just say something like "A man walks into a potato and seven crocodile" or something. The thing is, Jazzpunk shows on multiple occasions that it doesn't rely on randomness to be funny ("I am in your debt. I am in overwhelming debt." "You have bestowed blindness upon me." and "I have fourth degree burns all over my entire face" come to mind). Also, most of the time the randomness is, again, sensible and often funny (like the trinkets you find during the metal detector mini game.)

Admittedly, there are plenty of points where the randomness is nothing more than randomness and just isn't funny. For example, the flock of flying toasters. There are points where the humor is a bit too crude and juvenile, like when the Cowboy is in the bathroom expelling his kidney. Still, these low points didn't really damage my opinion of the game as a whole, since they were few and far between.

When I finished, I did find myself thinking quite a bit about the world of Jazzpunk. It's honestly fairly well-crafted. Despite it's absurdity, there are plenty of consistencies, and most things in the universe make since within itself. I find myself wondering exactly how Missionoyl works. I mean, the label specifically says “Take one per mission, or until reality is sufficiently augmented” so it isn't too hard to believe that all the randomness and absurdity is caused by everyone being on drugs. However, I have slightly different thoughts on the world itself.

Ending spoilers ahead.

At the end of the game, you defeat the villain and run to save the director (after spending 26 hours freeing his secretary from a gelatinous prison.) When you get to the director, you set him free, but also turn him into a crocodile (either accidentally or on purpose, I did it on purpose.) Then, he swallows you, and you see satirical end credits as you walk around inside him. When you get through the credits and reach the end, there is a tape recorder and a bottle of Missonoyl. The tape recorder explains that the director swallowed the record and the bottle, on the off chance that he ever gets transformed into a crocodilis e and swallows someone important. When you take the Missonoyl, a countdown appears, but rather than saying “Mission Begins in 5” like it usually does, it says “Simulation Ends in 5”.

Thing is, throughout the game, there is a lot of implication that you're not a human in reality, but some sort of android or something in a Matrix-like world. It's usually little things, like the fact that your eyes have windshield wipers, or the fact that at one point you literally download a new brain. At one point you take a different drug called Vacationoyl, which sends you into an actual simulated vacation. This is where you meet The Editor, the game's primary antagonist. Anyway, this all leaves me asking the question, “what exactly does Missonoyl do?” because at this point my best guess is that the entire game takes place in a simulation and Missionoyl is just a repository of code that sends you into various other simulations. Perhaps the Missionoyl at the end is just coded to make you exit the simulation. To all of this I have one question: Why? I don't know. Maybe that's the point.

One last thing I want to talk about is the “final boss fight”. After you escape from the simulated vacation, you return to find that the director and his secretary have both been kidnapped. Then you take some drugs that send you to The Editor's Bachelor Pad, disguised as an Exterminator (because Jazzpunk.) You do a bunch of random side quests, including a Fruit Ninja mini-game, a shooting gallery where you shoot toast and ducks, and a pillow-fight-to-the-death. After you clear these side shennannigans (which is honestly a more fitting word than “quests” or “missions”), you find the Director and you're confronted by the Editor in an almost excessively silly manner.

The following sequence is quite honestly the best part of the entire game, in my opinion. Instead of a dramatic boss fight (which would be out of place in this game anyway, so it's not surprising), the Editor challenges you to a gauntlet of sports games. This turns into a fairly clever inversion of several gaming tropes more than anything. First of all, you can't actually win the battle. The first game, which is basically mini-golf played with anything except a golf club, is impossible to win because The Editor always gets a “Home Run” (his own words.) The second game is Gravy Boat Racing, which you can actually win, but it doesn't matter. The Editor gets grumpy and admits that you weren't supposed to be able to win and that he needs to cheat harder in the future. The last game is a game of Virtual Boy Tennis. You can win this one fairly easy by taking a chair and beating the Editor unconscious with it. Afterwards, you arrive at the awards ceremony and the Editor decides that he won anyway. So you decide to use his own Hubris against him, in probably the most literal fashion imaginable. You run around finding trophies and accolades to throw at him, which causes him to literally inflate with pride. You then pop him, causing him to die. As silly as it is, it's a very nice play on the traditional “beaten by his own hubris” concept.

That's basically my thoughts on the game. I just realized that I didn't talk about the graphics at any point, so I'll some that up really quickly: They're simple but charming and kind of cute. It's honestly a nice style. Reminds me of Thirty Flights of Loving in some ways. Anyway, yeah, the game had a few low-points and jokes that I just personally didn't find funny, but as far as comedy video games go, this one is pretty top quality. I recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor. It's pretty short, too, not much of a time commitment.