NES Game Reviews #31 – The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book looks impressive, but the control lets it down. Each movement has 4 or 5 frames of animation, it’s pretty but your response time is compromised as a result!
You can perform a long & high jump. Were are both necessary? Sometimes you even need to do a long, high jump. Fail to gauge the correct jump required and you’re toast!
Mowgli must recover a set number of gems hidden in each level before being carried off to by a giant bird, you remember the giant bird from the story right? Gems are scattered across the furthest corners of the stages. Most stages work on multiple levels, getting to the tree tops can be challenging, mistakes are costly! Its frustrating to reach the end level only realise you’ve missed a gem at the beginning. However the constant backtracking adds another layer of gameplay and means you’ll get to really appreciate(or dread) every part of the level.
It’s unlikely you’ll collect every gem first time. There’s a fairly unforgiving time limit, thankfully if you lose a life, the gems you’ve already collected are saved (until you use a continue), so progression through a stage is bearable.
Mowgli can jump on some enemies heads, but you’d better be perfect with your accuracy. I seem to lose more life than it’s worth so I avoid the jump attack. Thankfully there’s an abundance of jungle themed projectiles. You can stockpile weapons which helps for bosses!
Bosses appear to get easier the further you get! Baloo is the 2nd boss. Why is Mowgli fighting him? Once defeated, you appear to ride his dead corpse down river! Good job I’ve read the story?.
Find a spade hidden in each level for the bonus stage. Here theres an abundance of extra lives and even continues. You’ll need them for level 8! The whole level is falling platforms! There’s nothing more theraputic than holding your breath, clenching your buttocks and curling your toes for every jump! The jump mechanics demand landing on an exact set of pixels or death! How relaxing, and a whole level of it! Good job NES controllers are built like tanks. I could have snapped mine at one point!
Fun game let down by poor controls. Still worth a playthrough.