Jack Move
Last year, a regular reader recommended Jack Move to me and while I'm most certainly paraphrasing the conversation, he said that it featured a "relatable protagonist" with "awesome music." Master Hammerfist, if you are reading this, I gotta say you know this reader very well because so far Jack Move has been an enjoyable experience. Looking into a bit of the game's development history reminds me of a quote that circles the internet all the time. "A delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad," or some sort of variant of a quote Shigeru Miyamoto never said.
In the case of Edd Parris, this quote rang true as Jack Move has been in development for a little over a decade since 2012. Development began during his employment at Mediatonic, the studio now best known for Fall Guys and the picross-narrative-based murder-mystery visual novel Death By Numbers. As the battle system was one of the first things developed before Jack Move officially had a name, this is the perfect starting point. Jack Move is a turn-based RPG with a behind-the-back isometric perspective similar to Golden Sun, yet with the field-of-vision cranked. The scene looks like the inside of a Virtual Boy, fitting well with the tech and cyberpunk aesthetic.
The combat follows a turn-order system that can be altered with various actions. The player can delay their turn if they need to defend against a powerful attack, for example. Learning how to manipulate the turn-order system is important for the early game as the enemies can quickly overwhelm Noa if the player isn't careful. Noa Solares is a hacker barely scrapping by and she isn't much of a physical fighter, so she can't take that much damage without resulting in a game over.
Most enemies are categorized into three element types, Cyberware, Electroware, and Wetware, each with a weakness to the other. Noa begins with an attack from each type but the catch is that her gear only allows her to have a chipset at a time. Until she's able to find upgraded gear that can hold more chips, the player will need to occasionally swap out chips in battle to keep up with her enemy's weaknesses. It plays similarly to Shin Megami Tensei in that exploiting vulnerabilities while protecting your own will mean the difference between victory and a game over screen.
As mentioned earlier, Jack Move's soundtrack is a banger courtesy of Charlie "Fracture" Fieber. While I wasn't able to find the soundtrack on streaming, you can buy the digital soundtrack on the Steam page. Fracture also has his own Spotify page if this style of music interests you, as he has an extensive catalog. In terms of story, it's very on the nose with its cyberpunk-era themes. Noa is just one of many people not living in the slums, but nowhere near living in the upper quarters. She's just an honest kid scrapping to get by, if, by "honest" you mean stealing from your landlords for parts. Sounds like an honest living to me.
Jack Move begins with Noa on the run after a heist of hers goes south. Being more of a "digital Robin Hood," stealing from the wealthy corpos and occasionally helping out her neighbors, this simple way of living is threatened. Noa's father was caught up in something big, which of course would involve her as she gets tangled up in a conspiracy that pits her against the corrupt elite. That is if the low-lives don't get to her first. While Jack Move nudges the player in a direction, the game doesn't outright block off locations unless they are relevant to the plot. I found myself in a part of the map I wasn't meant to go and I was quickly defeated in two hits.
It's not an unforgiving game by any measure. Jack Move gives the player enough tools to win, but it doesn't hold the player's hand outside of the initial tutorial level. If fights seem too hard, the player should act defensively. If they are too easy, then they can adjust the enemy encounter to give them a challenge. The story, art, and music are all beautiful and it's held together by the core gameplay which the developer spent a decade perfecting. I'll come back to this game with a full review in the future, but so far so good! Jack Move gets a plus from me.
Jack Move is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.