If you were to ask Nintendo fans to make a list of Sony exclusive platformers that they would like to see on the DS, Death Jr. probably wouldn’t be very high on that list, if on it at all.
The miniature reaper’s first game for the PSP had a tremendous amount of hype, with little to back it up, and the sequel, also for the PSP, didn’t do much to improve the pedigree of the series. Now it’s the DS’s turn for a little Death Jr. lovin’ and Konami, along with developer Backbone Entertainment has truly saved the worst for last.
Death Jr. and the Science Fair of Doom follows the adventures of Death Jr., DJ to his friends, as he attempts to rescue his classmates after their school is transformed into a demonic educational institution, the result of a science fair project gone awry. Along the way, DJ must find the body of his now deceased friend Pandora and recover his dad’s scythe. Why his father’s scythe is important, we’re not sure, as the only information we’re given about it is a direct reference to the original Death Jr. game. The story is told via nicely painted still pictures in a stop-motion animation style, paired with stilted, horrible dialog, to create an answer to the age old question “Can static images overact?” They sure can.
DJ is joined by the spirit of his dead friend Pandora, who can be controlled in 15 second intervals to scout ahead, collect soul orbs, and use these soul orbs to replenish DJ’s health and confidence (think special move meter), and unlock new paths.
The soul orb notion is an interesting one, although poorly implemented, which, come to think of it, is the story of this game summed up in one easy phrase. Killing an enemy drops a soul jar. Breaking open the soul jar releases soul orbs which can then be used to ride the Soul Train. Ha! Just kidding. Switching to Pandora allows the player to collect the soul orbs by tapping the orb with the stylus. Due to the imprecision of the touching mechanism, harvesting souls of the fallen becomes a tedious exercise of madly tapping the touch screen while coming up with new and exciting curse words.
As mentioned before, Pandora can replenish DJ’s vitals via the soul orbs. To do this, the player switches to Pandora, taps the needed orb with the stylus, pulls it back and maneuvers it until a target appears on DJ, and then lets go. The same mechanism is used to hit soul targets, which are sprinkled throughout the game world as part of platforming puzzles and boss battles. The fact that the soul orbs are constantly rotating makes tapping the right one a pain, and it’s all too easy to acquire the target lock and then imperceptibly move the stylus when letting go, thereby shooting your soul off into the ether. Plus, if you run out of time with Pandora while you’re in the middle of aiming, the soul goes bye-bye. This, coupled with the fact that many of the soul targets require souls of a certain color, means you spend a fair amount of time backtracking to find an enemy that drops the soul of the right color, then fighting the imperfect play mechanics to actually use the soul. Heaven help you if Pandora has to do any jumping prior to the soul target.
Pandora isn’t the only one with jumping problems, as the edge detection and jumping moves available to DJ combine to create one of the most frustrating platforming experiences in recent memory. DJ has the typical set of platforming moves including a jump, a double jump, a helicopter move for long jumps and a edge grab with his scythe. While these moves look good on paper, often times they fail to work properly. Camera control is minimal, so navigating DJ to the intended target involves mostly luck. The edge detection, combined with the scythe grab, often gets DJ stuck in an endless loop of grabbing an edge with his scythe, popping up, falling back down and catching the edge with his scythe all over again.
These problems, combined with enemies and environmental hazards makes for many, many attempts at the jumping puzzles . DJ’s death results in him restarting a room, rather than from a save point, but it’s a small comfort as some of the rooms are fairly large and require multiple trips when DJ finally gets to his destination only to find that progress is blocked by a soul target of a color Pandora can’t match. By the 6th trip through one such room, the game became less of a mediocre platformer and more of a meditation on Death itself. When Death, represented by DJ, “dies” on screen, the player if forced to do everything all over again, which represents the monotony of an endless life without hope for closure. We shouldn’t wish for an end to Death, instead we should embrace it. Chances are this game will make you not only embrace Death, but ask for a visit if only to deliver you from the abysmal experience.
It’s not all bad though. The levels are a creative take on the typical school environments. The cafeteria is filled with attacking pots of mystery stew and demonic toaster ovens. The greenhouse is a demon filled jungle, the woodshop is overrun with malicious shop vacs and huge saw blades and the boiler room is home to exploding coals and dive-bombing bats. The enemies have a charm to their animations, even if their attacks fall into the same, easily avoidable patterns. DJ’s character animations are similarly well done. His walking animation, scythe jauntily propped on his shoulder, gives him a lot of personality. His attack animations are decent with various finishing moves, as well as special moves which can be used to stun enemies, and, in some cases, navigate to higher parts of the levels.
It’s a good thing that DJ’s scythe animations are good, as the scythe is DJ’s only effective weapon. Pistols, a shotgun and C4 hamsters are available however it’s impossible to hit the broad side of a barn with any them. The pistols are occasionally used to flip platforms and the C4 hamsters are used to unlock paths to rescue students, but other than that, the non-bladed weapons are useless.
