JUJU (Xbox 360, 2014)

JUJU
Developed by Flying Wild Hog
Published by Nordic Games
Released for Xbox 360 (12/2014)
Also on Android, PC & PlayStation 3
Backwards Compatible on Xbox One


JUJU features 3D graphics but is an old-school 2D platformer at heart. The visuals utilize the Unreal engine and look very bright and colorful. Everything looks quite nice despite the rather generic character designs. Your main objective is to simply make it to the end of the level, with a few hidden things here and there to find along the way. There are ambers spread about that serve as your points, and for every hundred of them collected you'll earn an extra heart, which serve as your life meter. Also hidden within each level are three different teleports. Stepping into these will reveal a bonus room, and if you collect all the ambers within the time limit you're given a coin. Unfortunately, there are about four different varieties of these you'll play repeatedly throughout the game and they end up getting repetitive rather fast. At the end of each stage you'll be ranked according to your score, and can earn up to three coins for your points in addition to another set of three coins available from the teleport rooms. JUJU definitely takes some inspiration from the Rayman games which is good as we don't see too many of these types of games anymore.

The difficulty is much easier compared to any Rayman game, making it very accessible for younger players. There are challenge stages that can be unlocked if you collect all the coins available for each world, and these stages do ramp up the challenge quite considerably, but there are only four of them through the entire game. The games four worlds consist of eight levels plus the hidden level, with a boss fight at the end of each. Once you've completed all four worlds, you'll get to face off against the final giant bat dude boss (not a spoiler, you see him pop up everytime you die so you know you're going to fight him). The controls work great, the level design is good and the game introduces a new ability for your character in each world to keep things from getting too monotonous. The character movement will strike you as being very slow at first, but you'll warm up to quick and once you gain the dash move this helps speed things up a bit. The sound effects for picking up the items definitely sounds like something you'd hear coming from a slot machine at the casino, which I guess is saying the sound and music design are a bit bland but they're not bad enough to drag the solid gameplay down. 2D platformer fans should find some enjoyment with JUJU, or if you have a younger gamer it's not a bad game to help develop some good basic platforming skills. While JUJU never saw a physical retail release on the Xbox 360, it was given 1000 points worth of gamerscore like all other retail games, as opposed to the 200 or 400 points that were typically offered by download-only titles.

Final Verdict: JUJU is a solid 2D platformer with a lax difficulty, ideal for younger gamers or players who are easily frustrated.

External Links:
Flying Wild Hog Official Website


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