Cory's Game Reviews

The Story…

In Pumpkin Jack, you take up the role of well… Jack. He’s a dead Knight that has been resurrected as a Pumpkin…Man…Ghoul(?) and you are now tasked with helping the Devil to take over the world! However, the mere mortals have a savior. The world’s greatest Wizard! He is their last hope at stopping you and the army you will unleash from total domination. You, your trusty Owl, and Raven must fight your way across the land to defeat him!

The Gameplay…

The game takes the form of a 3D, action, platformer where you are dropped into levels and have to fight your way through skeletons, ghouls, among other creatures to chase after the Wizard.

During these levels, there are different types of collectables such as bird skulls and music boxes to gather that can be traded with one of the ‘interesting’ allies you’ll make as you progress through the game to unlock new costumes for Jack.

Jack has set attacks mapped to ‘Y’ (or X on the Xbox and square on the PlayStation) which usually has a combo of 3 moves. Furthermore, as you progress, you will unlock new and exciting weapons for Jack to use on your foes and to further aid in your fight against humanity that all work very differently. One is a ghostly sword, another one is a speak etc. You also have a ground pound to stomp the remaining life out of anyone who stands in your way which also works based on what weapon you have equipped.

As you’ll have guessed, there are a lot of platform sections where you have to jump around and scale towers to get those nifty collectables and continue through the missions. For some of these (if you’re like me), you’ll end up mistiming and want to quit after 5 attempts. It wasn’t the game’s fault, I just pressed the button a few seconds too early (I know what I’m doing, I swear…). But once you get to grips with what you’re doing, you’ll be well away. The platform sections often made me feel triumphant in regards to the ones I struggled on, once I had beaten them anyway! In terms of difficulty, the game isn’t too bad aside from some of the bosses but who doesn’t like a challenge?

Speaking of the bosses, there are several throughout the game of varying difficulties, be prepared for a tough fight when the time comes to face the Wizard… they are worth it and are fun if not frustrating.

What else I struggled with was the on-horse sections as you bound through the woods, avoiding obstacles and enemies alike. I found that annoying but again, that’s my skill issue… *cries*.

The Graphics…

The graphics are great! They give you the nostalgic feel of the mid-2000s to 2010s! Jack, appears super colourful and vibrant and very visible against the backdrop of the world. Generally, the whole environment pops with colour, from the deep pits of lava bursting with orange to the spooky-filled trees with a purple backdrop, you can’t say it isn’t a pleasing game to look at! They’ll hold up forever in my opinion, they just have that sort of artistic, retro style

The Soundtrack…

The soundtrack was perfect, definitely giving off a spooky vibe the entire time. It just worked so well and I couldn’t fault it at all. It sort of reminded me of old spooky movies, you’ll know it when you hear it.

In Conclusion…

Pumpkin Jack is a fantastic 3D platformer, full of great jokes and quips, and fun combat. The music keeps the whole “spooky” feeling going and keeps drawing you in until the very end! I 100% recommend the game to platforming fans, especially as you can pick the game up pretty cheaply.