Game Name: Jill of the Jungle
Developer: Epic MegaGames
Publisher: Epic MegaGames
Release Date: June 1992
Platforms: Microsoft MSDOS
Introduction
On my last Retro Night in Canada stream I played this old classic Jill of the Jungle. I had gotten the game from GOG.com. It came with 3 episodes. I played the first self titled game, Jill of the Jungle.
Back in the day, there were not many platformers out there on PC. Most platform games were on console. How did this fare compared to the Mario Bros. series or Sonic the Hedgehog series? Well let us find out.
Story / Gameplay
You play the character of Jill who is an amazon woman. You collect jewels and keys to traverse through levels. There are 15 levels in episode one with a secret bonus level.
The mechanics of the game are pretty simple. You can jump and you can also shoot a weapon once you find it. The weapon is usually a daggar / boomerang. So when you shoot it, it comes back to the player. However, if it takes too long to get back to Jill, it will just stay there in mid air until Jill can grab it again.
The main challenge of the game is to get through the puzzles. They are not terribly difficult.
There are quite a few enemies but they are not super challenging. Most of them are either animals that can be found in the jungle like Frogs and Snakes or demon like creatures.
Jill of the Jungle - Sample Gameplay
Bottomline
This was a trip down memory lane when I downloaded this in 1992 on my computer at the time. However, I do not think that it has aged as well as people might have remembered.
The difficulty level for the first episode at least is not that difficult. There are not a lot of places where you can get stuck. Like any platformer, you need to learn the patterns but it is usually pretty easy to figure out.
The sounds in the game are unique. I particularly like the "YYEEAAHHHH" sound. I actually made this my follow sound on Twitch. I also like the vinyl scratch when you try to shoot a weapon but you do not have it in your inventory yet.
The graphics were really cool for the time. It is very colourful and it is much more vibrant than other games of the genre.
I did appreciate the comedy in the game. There were areas where you had texts on a bunch of known video game super heroes (Super Mario and Duke Nukem) retiring cause they could not keep up with Jill. I think that was good and a nice touch.
Do I think that it lives up? Personally not really. If I wanted to play a similar game from that time period, I would play Commander Keen. Although not as visually stunning I think that the gameplay was better.
Although this was one of the first games to feature a super hero that is a female, it does not mean that the game is still fun today. I think that many people playing this game would play it simply for nostalgia reasons.
It has been free from time to time on GOG.com and I say it is worth a shot. However, if you would pay money, I would go with other more established games.
What do you think? Let me know at the coordinates below.
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