This is probably the best one out of the Jill of the Jungle trilogy. It all comes down to level design and sound. The mechanics of this franchise aren't good because it was an early 90s DOS platformer and programmers were still figuring out pixel movement but the game is still okay despite that. and the other janky elements in the gameplay.
The game gets by on cool sound and atmosphere. The SFX are very cool like the "GIRL" (or is it "YEAH"?) when Jill picks up a key or the guitar thrash when a hint comes up. The sound effects give the game a lot of personality! The music is pretty good too with the cool but pensive "Zeppelin" and the dreamy "Dan" being favourites of mine with the latter getting me into new age/downtempo music maybe? Some songs are obnoxious like the menacing "Jupiter" but overall the audio side of JotJ is idiosyncratic. Epic would reuse a lot of the sound palette in other games but they use it best here.
The world is interesting too. It has an inherent dreamy quality to it and there are a lot of stylistic details like how Jill rises from the ground at the start of every level. It works well with the start of a lot of songs. I like the notes written into the level's geometry.
I can see why this is mostly forgotten. In the end, the platforming is janky because of the lack of pixel-movement and collision detection is weird. Acquiring new abilities and exploring the world (which this game has an interesting hub world) is interesting but the level designs are basic. Wish I lot of the "cool" in this game was in a more robust platformer because the style of this game has stuck with me even years on.
The game gets by on cool sound and atmosphere. The SFX are very cool like the "GIRL" (or is it "YEAH"?) when Jill picks up a key or the guitar thrash when a hint comes up. The sound effects give the game a lot of personality! The music is pretty good too with the cool but pensive "Zeppelin" and the dreamy "Dan" being favourites of mine with the latter getting me into new age/downtempo music maybe? Some songs are obnoxious like the menacing "Jupiter" but overall the audio side of JotJ is idiosyncratic. Epic would reuse a lot of the sound palette in other games but they use it best here.
The world is interesting too. It has an inherent dreamy quality to it and there are a lot of stylistic details like how Jill rises from the ground at the start of every level. It works well with the start of a lot of songs. I like the notes written into the level's geometry.
I can see why this is mostly forgotten. In the end, the platforming is janky because of the lack of pixel-movement and collision detection is weird. Acquiring new abilities and exploring the world (which this game has an interesting hub world) is interesting but the level designs are basic. Wish I lot of the "cool" in this game was in a more robust platformer because the style of this game has stuck with me even years on.