One of the great things about mobile gaming is that there are a lot of games available. That too, can also be a downside of mobile gaming, because good, fun and quality games are a little bit harder to find. NLABSOFT Inc. located in Seoul, South Korea, has released a game that is fun, with simple controls and gameplay that is challenging at the same time. Jump Warrior is an RPG that will pit you against skeletons and other beasts, but not quite in the way you expect.
When I first came across Jump Warrior I thought, “This looks interesting, but what is it?” The game has good graphics and claimed to be an RPG with one-button touch controls. It is everything NLABSOFT said it would be. It is an RPG in that you have a main protagonist in the game that you will be able to level up throughout the game with new weapons, armor, boots and helms. Let me get this out of the way, because some people may want to stop reading here. Jump Warrior is a free to play game. But wait! It is free-to-play in the best way possible. There are no timers and there doesn’t appear to be any pay walls. Okay, let’s move forward. Are you still interested? I thought you may be.
Jump Warrior is all about gaining loot and leveling up your main character. How do you do that? You mainly have to put the smackdown on any enemies that you encounter. Let me go a step further. You really don’t do any fighting in the game yourself. That is basically handled by the game itself. What you do control is getting your character from one enemy to another by simply jumping to them as closely as possible. It may sound like it is boring, but it is really just the opposite. The game is a lot of fun because of the simple premise, great controls and all of the loot that you will try to obtain to level up your hero.
The game starts with you standing atop a large stone column. In the distance you see a frog that must need smashing. There is no storyline to speak of in the game, and it’s not really needed, though it would be nice to round out the game. There is an arrow that is moving left and right in front of your character. You tap the screen once to set the direction that you want your hero to jump towards. Once that is done, a meter shows up within the confines of the arrow that undulates up and down. This sets the power/distance of your jump.
Your hero has a circle underneath him and your enemy has a circle under them as well. If you jump and your circles touch, you are able to successfully take out your enemy without losing HP. If you land outside of the circle of your enemy, whatever the enemy’s HP is, you will lose that amount of HP with your character. The game is easy to understand, but most warriors are used to fighting, not jumping right? There is quite a bit of fun to be had here in short bursts. I say short bursts simply because the game can be a bit challenging, but it doesn’t take away from the fun.
As you play the game more and you become more successful at timing your jumps, you will find different chests (loot), power-ups and health throughout your journey. It is a tough decision at times trying to determine if you will go for the power-up or simply take out another beast. The reason is because while taking out the beast may yield more gold coins or xp to level you up, that power-up may just be the weapon you need down the road.
On the RPG side of things, there are plenty of swords, helms, armor and boots that you can equip your hero with. Each sword or piece of equipment can be found in the Blacksmith shop. You can sort everything by Health or rarity. Each piece of equipment also has an attack rating and either provides additional gold or health regeneration during game play.
As you level up during gameplay, you gain points that you can spend on your player in three different areas. They are health, attack and fatality range. The fatality range is pretty important because that is the circle that is beneath your hero. As you level up and spend points on your fatality range, the circle grows. That makes it a bit easier when planning your jumps, as you have more ground that you are able to cover. Also during gameplay, you may encounter a power-up that grows your fatality range considerably while playing for your next two or three jumps. Keep in mind, when your circle intersects with the enemies, you perform a fatality attack or haymaker, and you don’t lose any hp. This allows you to play the game longer of course. Once you run out of hp, or if the enemy you encounter has more hp than you do, it is game over.
You will also find different chests scattered around, while you are battling the enemy. There are small, large and great chests and they vary from normal to uncommon. It costs 1000 coins to open a chest but you will acquire coins quickly so that isn’t a problem. Also, like other popular free to play games, you get free chests to open after a set amount of time. The chests will either contain gold or equipment. I like the humor that NLABSOFT has in that the first item I unlocked in a chest was a Candy Crusher weapon. It’s pretty powerful too!
Jump Warrior is integrated with Google Gameplay Services with 5 achievements to unlock. As I mentioned previously, the game is free to play. If you don’t have a lot of time to spare when it comes to gaming, then Jump Warrior is a nice app to have on your mobile devices. You can quickly “jump” in and out of a game. The games controls are great, the visuals are good and the RPG aspects of the game will keep you playing for a while. NLABSOFT has a winner in Jump Warrior, let’s hope they continue adding to the game, because I can see where this game could be expanded upon easily to keep players intrigued and exploring new worlds or concepts in a game that is very well put together.
