Jason Savio

What do you get when you take one-part Zelda and two-parts Mario and mix them together? You’d think you’d get something awesome, but instead you’ll end up with JackQuest: Tale of the Sword.

This game is a love letter to retro gaming complete with old school pixels and music and it can be a neat and likeable experience. JackQuest takes all you love about those other classic games and mashes them together, but it does so in what feels like a careless fashion.

You play as Jack, an unassuming lad who has his world upturned when his beloved Nara is shockingly taken away by a giant green hand that bursts out of the ground. This sends our hero on a quest (see what I did there?) to find Nara. He does this with the help of Kuro, who is imprisoned in a sword by the same entity that took Nara. Kuro offers him to help Jack find Nara if Jack takes him along for the journey so he can break the spell that binds him to the sword. The sword then becomes Jack’s weapon of choice, and ends up being what he uses to slay all sorts of creepy and gooey monstrosities in a never-ending underground cave.

And that’s just part of the problem with JackQuest—there is never a real change of scenery. Sure, you swim around in the water here and there (sound familiar?) but it’s still contained in the blue hues of this underground layer. Who wants to play an entire game that takes place in the same setting?

The way the environment is set up and the challenges you face are straight out of Super Mario World. There are even linear, swinging balls of fire you must jump around. The thing with that classic game is that you had numerous settings and environments to explore, each with its own unique set of obstacles. JackQuest feels like a rerun at times, playing through the same challenges again and again. That’s not to say there this game is totally dry on creativity, there are some cool bosses that will make you have to strategize. But it could have been more, and when you’re trying to mimic golden games of yesteryear, it has to be more.

For more, visit: jackquestgame.com