Jack Move

Jack Move
N/A
Metacritic
80
Steam
73.56
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
8 September 2022
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
80 (532 votes)
Recent
50 (10 votes)

Jack Move is a JRPG that features a unique blend of gritty cyberpunk story telling, turn based battles and beautiful modern pixel art. Take on the role of Noa, a vigilante hacker who is thrust into a world of murder, kidnapping and dark research after her father goes missing.

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Jack Move system requirements

Minimum:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows XP and above
  • Processor: 1.2Ghz
  • Memory: 1024 MB RAM
  • Graphics: 512MB
  • Storage: 300 MB available space
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Myndaen
Myndaen

Excellent game. Beautiful artwork, great music, interesting story. The gameplay isn't really anything we haven't seen before, but overall it's so good I recommend it wholeheartedly.

nbeta777
nbeta777

Very fun RPG, with a lot of beautifully expressive animations, intuitive and polished battle design, and computer-based humor. the only issue I had was that the game feels as though it should be much longer - it took me about 8.5 hrs to beat 100% with most of the "dungeons" (major areas in which you have random encounters) only lasting a couple of screens. overall, definitely give this game a chance!

Ihandsolo
Ihandsolo

This game has the makings of something great. The video for the game had engaging music and the animation was smooth. When I first saw it my mind went straight to Flashback the old SNES game, the shape of the CEO's car, the cyberpunk dystopian cityscape. I knew the moment I saw that store page video I would be buying this game. The Gameplay kinda reminds me of a mix between battlechip challenge (megaman) and a pokemon game without pokemon and the tall grasses are simply restricted/encounter areas. I have heard that most peoples negative reviews are due to the games short storyline, but seeing that beautiful intro video I can understand in a small way why the game may be shorter than most but I hold out hope for dlc adventures. Here's to a THOUSAND YEARS OF JACKMOVE, a thousand years of Noa and Rider. THOUSAND! *burrrp* THOUSAND YEARS OF JACKMOVE, YEA JACKMOVE MORTY! A THOUSAND YEARS OF JACK AND MOVE!!!! IT"LL BE AWESOME!

CursedGoopy
CursedGoopy

Short, sweet, pretty simple in both mechanics and narrative. The visuals are utterly gorgeous in every way and while the game isn't outstanding in other aspects it doesn't fall totally flat either. I think it's worth a play just to spend some time with the world and appreciate the art.

NaviKing
NaviKing

Jack Move is a game about a cyberpunk dystopian future where corporations control the world. The player character is a young woman named Noa who soon finds out her father has been involved in some research that has made him the target of the main corporation of the game, Monomind. The story is about Noa's journey to rescue her father (and maybe even take down an evil corporation on the way).

The story was... fine, I guess, but suffered from pacing that was far too fast. Events escalated far too quickly and then at the end of the game it seems like... everyone is fine for some reason? Even though much of the game was about them not being fine. I can sort of suspend my disbelief a little bit but it felt like the story would have been served better by a longer game (my 5.4 hours represents a full play through and basically a 100% of the game, including side quests).

The gameplay is fun and interesting with a single character party that allows you to swap moves in and out during battle. However, this really only becomes relevant during the final fight (which is kind of a slog, though satisfying to be able to build up so many buffs), otherwise it's not really necessary. I also found the combat to be made trivially easy after getting the piece of equipment that lets you deal more damage while taking more damage, because you can simply remove the damage taken increase buffs with a single skill at the beginning of battle.

Speaking of combat though, the quality of life features in this game are amazing. You can freely adjust the encounter rate and the game lets you know when you've talked to NPCs already. You can easily check main and side objectives from your menu as well. The only thing I didn't like is there seemed to be no encyclopedia of various status effects, and you mainly have to rely on context clues to figure out what they do (and some things I never figured out what they did, e.g., some kind of fire looking buff that is on the aforementioned piece of equipment).

Normally I recommend games based on my enjoyment at their base price point, and it's a little hard for me to do so here... Still though, I can't say it wasn't enjoyable, just short. It had some flaws, but nothing unforgivable. I would say to pick this up at maybe $10-15. $20 is a bit much considering the length. However, I certainly hope the developer creates more games along this vein, I think they are onto something solid here and a second attempt could allow them to fix all of the issues I mentioned. Keep it up!

exltride
exltride

It's a really good game, I enjoyed it, it is a little bit short and it still has a few bugs but even with that I recommend it.

HigH-5
HigH-5

7 hours....with at least an hour of AFK in there....but lets be generous and say 7 hours. You get 7 hours of gameplay. While sound&music is excellent, and the pixel art is super well done and a joy to look at....there just is not much game here.

The combat is stale before you get to the last fight, because there are not many combat mechanics. There is very little exploration, because the game world is tiny. There is little to no progression or character development, because the entire game is 7 or so hours long. It's very disappointing because there is massive potential here! But without a gigantic content patch, maybe even a free expansion, this game is a no go.

This is a five dollar game at best, I got ripped off paying twenty for it.

cpittaway8
cpittaway8

For one, i would definitely recommend people buy this game, but only if it's on sale. Don't get me wrong, i actually really enjoy the game, but there's one main issue that stands out to me. The game is at least partially advertised as a JRPG, but it lacks the balancing needed to be one, the combat system is rather basic, and it boss fights can be mostly summed up as 'hit the thing until jack move'. As well as that the aforementioned balancing hasn't been done well, in JRPG games, most people tend to grind. Don't. I did some light grinding towards the start of the game and then jacked up the encounter frequency for the rest of game play, because i thought i'd need the XP. However, i ended up completely trivialising the combat, by the first actual boss fight i was comfortably able to wail on the main boss and ignore his two goons, until i git a jack move, which instantly killed all three of them.

Macaroni-tan
Macaroni-tan

This game is really beautiful, it's so stylish, there's so much personality.
I just finished this game last night, it isn't very long but the game doesn't waste your time. The story beats come at good times, the game really doesn't waste your time.

Combat mechanics are pretty basic and yet they do a great job engaging you.
- The Cache mechanic, block for a turn to gain an extra turn later, it's like Bravely Default except utilized in a very dynamic way
- Install, you can't bring all of your skills with you in to combat so you have to install/uninstall on the fly. You may not use this much early on but for some late game bosses you'll need this.

Don't neglect buying those status buffs/debuffs! Or at least make sure you buy them by the end of the game!

Game runs very smoothly, it's pretty, lovable characters, nice story I don't want to spoil, and the devs are dedicated to fixing every minor graphical or gameplay glitch you might encounter (I played on 1.03 and only encountered a graphical bug during combat once in the late game... and a dev contacted me saying they were on it and planned on having it fixed for next patch)

Maybe that stuff about patches is an aside but it just really displays the passion these creators have... they seriously deserve your money... there is SO MUCH PASSION baked in to this game.

DetectiveThief
DetectiveThief

This game is a really good time. Great pixel art, music is pretty good though I'm not sure it's the kind of music you listen to outside of the game. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Combat balancing is a weird thing. Game is a one-track mindset kind of game at the start where you just wail on the enemy with the occasional heal. Then suddenly you get to purchase any skill you want in the shop, I of coursed loved this but at the same time made me kind of sad because everything you see in the shop is everything you can get for the REST of the game. The thing I love about RPGs a lot is discovering new skills and the ways to use them, but if I'm just handed the entire list, it felt like I could just plan out my build right there in the first hour.

The combat overall is fun, it's not super complex and I think if this game lasted anywhere around the 20 hour mark the combat would get extremely boring but considering the short length, it's good for what it's trying to do.

Characters are fun, and the story is surprisingly engaging after a bit.

AX
AX

Slick. Snappy. Extremely fun to play and extremely satisfying to control. RIYL Unsighted, JRPGs, pixel art, whipass music etc

Sabin
Sabin

L O V E D IT! Just absolutely loved it :) In an genre of 100-150hr mega epics, it was nice to kick back with a short but sweet jRPG romp that doesn't outstay its welcome and leave you feeling burned out. I loved this from start to finish, thanks in no small part to the truly gorgeous artwork and the BANGING soundtrack! The battle system was a blast, and the story was sweet and enjoyable.

I really enjoyed the cyberdeck system, which let you load up certain programs and mods depending on how you wanted to fight, but if there was any negative I could give the game it would be the difficulty. I'm not usually one to mention something being too easy but, yeah, this was. Once I hit Lv12 or so, the battles became trivial - never once did I feel in danger from an enemy. Until the final boss, but even that became simple once you get into a rhythm. Bloody awesome final boss fight though :)

Also, I *have* to give props to the credits which played out like something from the Amiga demoscene. Just amazing.

The Messiah
The Messiah

(spoilers about story near the bottom)

play time for the average person is about 10 hours

its kind of weird of enjoying your time within a game and not being able to recommend it to other people, i bought this game for around 18 dollars as it was on sale for the launch of the game and mostly just on a whim as i had no other games in my backlog to play so i just scrolled through the steam new release page and found this.

this game is very pretty and stylized however the main mechanics of the game is lackluster at best.

i will be using terms like magic in place of whatever the game says it is because this game is effectively a rpgmaker game with a coat of paint, which there is nothing wrong with but it makes these terms interchangeable to me and makes me compare to all other rpgmaker games.

for overworld exploration there is only 1 major hub area and a couple of areas you unlock to spend maybe 15 to 45 minutes in depending if its a sidequest location or mainquest location. a majority of side quests in this game give you an item for another sidequest to complete a chain and at the end of the chain you get a piece of equipment that serves as a direct upgrade. all shops in this game sell the exact same gear the only thing stopping you from buying the best items in the game is being level locked with the highest level item being 20 (the game expects you to be around level 21 for the finale).

in these overworld areas you encounter npcs that have different dialogue based on what part of the game youre on, having little side stories like having a hacker friend who hates the big bad but ends up doing contracts for them to earn some money or a mafia member that is cold to you at first and then warms up to you and other things of that nature.

you are given the choice to reduce,increase, or turn off random battles which helps later on to prevent overleveling and if youre like me getting stuck on simple puzzles because you ran around not thinking.

there is also a more hidden option (read:in the options menu as opposed to the esc menu) that lets you instantly win any battle, however this requires you to still enter the battle which in my opinion makes it kind of useless as if your in a battle that you can one hit all the enemies (which would be the main reason i would use a feature like this: to avoid the fight entirely and just get the xp or whatever) the difference in time would be within 5 to 10 seconds.

there is in addition to both of these options, on death, you will be able to either return to title screen or respawn in the room entrance at the cost of 25% of your xp bar, so the game makes it very clear its suppose to be extremely easy and not at all a challenge that you have to pour hours into grinding, simply playing the game at normal or even reduced battle spawns will have you on pace as long as you arent dodging every fight which to me is a worthy trade off as i rather just not avoid any fights to be on level rather than grind some trash mobs just pad playtime.
combat is flashy animation wise but boring and repetitive with the same old boring physical vs magic, triangle of rock paper scissors with some enemies occasionally being a physical type being weak to magic. there are abilities called jack moves which are effectively ultimates.
after getting hit by an enemy for 5-10 turns depending on your equipped items gives you a board wipe effect for normal enemies and major damage to bosses you get 1 jack move per type of damage, 4 in total. you can skip a turn and defend which gives you a 3 turn defense bonus which stacks with the normal bonuses you can give to yourself, which dont fade away unless an enemy does something that specifically removes it so if you equip an item that boosts damage for every magic ability at the start of the battle you will probably just deal bonus damage forever as most enemies dont even debuff.

(spoilers)
the main story is kind of like cyberpunk 2077 boiled down oddly enough, a criminal and his partner get wrapped up in a battle with a giant corp that everyone hates, that want tech that makes you immortal except not really because all it does is create a copy of your memories as an ai at first and then later on at the end of the game they upgrade so it can upload your conscious to your computer all to save the ceos daughters life who ends up not wanting to kill you and instead fixing everything her mother did.

the characters have quirky ways of speaking in game with slang and dialect that doesnt seem to far fetched for the time period but are all technology related like calling things chrome instead of cool.

15 dollars for a 10ish hour experience isnt to bad in my eyes however the fact that story isnt amazing and neither is the combat made me put down the game a few times to go do something else like watch a youtube video from someone i like instead for about 30 minutes then come back to it or play it while the video is in the background, not the most gripping experience obviously but it is what it is.

not every game has to be a 50 hour epic magnum opus that you will talk about for eons and that is one of the better points of this game, if we had more shorter experiences like this one that didnt drag themselves out for too long with forced grinding or money farming or whatever the world would be a better place and games would be better, the fact that i completed it in 7 hours with 1 to 2 of them being afk means that it doesnt have to be perfect world with extremely intricate worldbuilding and backstory and lore and forcing the player to know about what happened in the war of 2007 despite it being 2102- none of that matters as i was only going to be there for a little bit.

i can really only recommend this game if you enjoy the pretty animations and the cyberpunk setting as it doesnt really have much else going on as i stated previously the mainstory and combat is weak but how the characters interact with each other and the personalities given to the npcs are slightly better but most people i reckon wont care and just rush through and ignore most of the dialogue. however if you are a fan of rpgmaker-esque games with short stories youd have a good chance of enjoying this.

43/100- wouldnt have bought the game if it didnt look they way that it did praise art designer they carried me through the game

jhnspann
jhnspann

Major glitch where character falls in-between two buildings.
Makes game impossible to play.
Messaged the company a number of days ago with no response.

mossy light
mossy light

This game was really fun and engaging. There are a few bugs currently thought like the Zombie software attack not working.

mukyuu respecter
mukyuu respecter

Fantastic turn based RPG, killer soundtrack and setting, I really, really love the equip/magic system (if you wanna call it that), and to top it all off, Noa is cute. I'm only about 3 hours in at the time of this review but I'm also extremely into it. Highly recommend if you want a turn-based RPG with a fantastic art direction/animation and a cool cyberpunk storyline!

SanjuuManjuu
SanjuuManjuu

While not the longest game (I have already completed it at the time of the review), Jack Move shows that you don't need overly complicated game play systems or hyper-realistic graphics to create a good game.

A Turn-base battle system based on coding and hacking terms as attacks, it incorporates a straightforward rock-paper-scissors battle system that is easy to understand and pick up. Graphics fits really well with the theme of the game, effectively conveying the ambience of each level and area to the player. The story line is simple enough with so much potential to grow should the developer decide to create a sequel.

My only critique is that I kind of hoped for more of the JACK MOVE system, one of the game's highlighted feature where you keyed in directional commands to execute a finisher-like move.

All-in-all, Jack Move feels like a fun demo of what it can be should it decide to expand as a sequel, it knows what it can do and it does it right. I'm excited to see more of Jack Move should the developer decide to start on it's sequel.

OlBootyhead
OlBootyhead

This gets a thumbs up with a caveat. It's VERY VERY short, even for the modest pricetag. However I wouldn't be having that complaint if I didn't enjoy it. The gameplay is fun and fluid, the combat and gearing is cool and allows for some nice customization.

I just feel like it's the beginning of a very good rpg and you only get the first chapter. Hopefully the team plans to expand the game further

KonaSaurus
KonaSaurus

Great game. Great graphics and visual effects. Good story - good enough that I got invested in the characters and their stories. Works perfectly on Steam Deck - I played from start to finish exclusively on my Deck.

The music is good - although a bit repetitive. The abilities, battles, and cyberpunk themes were fantastic. REALLY wish this game had more content but it seems like sequels are going to happen - which is awesome!

I highly recommend checking out this game - well worth the price! I beat the game with 100% completion / all achievements in right around 9.5 hours, as a slow / thorough / distracted gamer that doesn't rush through games.

nguyenv42
nguyenv42

Pros:
Visually pleasing with great soundtrack
Decent enough sci-fi story...

Cons:
Really short game, finish main quest and all side quest within 8 hrs
Barebone gameplay mechanics, lack depth and customization
No Post-Game content (yet?)

Conclusion:
Admittedly this game was lovely distraction but it felt disappointing.
There could've been much more they can put into this game. Wasted potential...

Jager
Jager

The game aesthetically is pretty nice. It has two issues though:
Firstly, it's REALLY short. I personally ended up slightly above 6 hours. I am pretty certain it could be even less if I didn't miss 3-5 times every random encounter (which gets tiresome after a while).
Secondly, and more importantly, the difficulty curve is bad. In less than two hours you can get to the point where, with the right deck, you one shot all opponents in an encounter at once, assuming you don't miss (bonus if they are vulnerable to your ability). It stops feeling like a challenge and becomes a slog. In that regard, it reminds me of FF1.

Hence, buy the game either when it's on sale or (hopefully) it gets more content.

Fibulator
Fibulator

*Very* short game. 6.5 hours. Cute, and worth $8-10. It's *very* bare bones, but enjoyable. Cute story, cute graphics, good pace and decent story told well. TONS of QoL bonuses... like changing the icon when you've listed to what a person has to say!

What it doesn't have: Party, Equipment, any complexity, non-cyber combat. NO anime cutscenes in game... :(

Basically it's a watered down version of Shadowrun: Returns. It's very base, bare bones system used to tell a very short story and make a few bucks while they work on making future games with the same assets.

$20 for a game this short/bare bones is pretty over priced... but devs need to be supported so they can make more (and HOPEFULLY better) games. ^_^

DemonDoggo
DemonDoggo

wow just have to say wow this game is amazing and love the story and how detailed, especially accurate when u go to the slums area and when i tried talking to one of the hobos one of them said id like slide my ROM in ur RAM someday i was dying XD

Flametounge62
Flametounge62

Super fun game and well worth a pick up!
It was great to play through and the battle system has some interesting customization.
ALL the music was really good but more battle themes are always nice.
Game was not too long.
Most of the bosses were great especially at the end.

I had a few things that bothered me:
One boss felt too spongy
I wish you had companions in the battle party. They should not have had elemental moves for balance reasons and the risk of making this game feel like pokemon.
The game really felt like it only came together in the last few dungeons (not that it wasn't fun before). I really wish there was some more before the end.

Definitely a solid 7 out of 10 experience (PLEASE let there be a sequel)

Narsakiel
Narsakiel

Frankly, its too short for what it offers. Short games can be well worth their price, but Jack Move doesnt offer any heartfelt story or particularly engaging gameplay.

DaReapa
DaReapa

Great game, in a few words I call it short and very sweet. I wish the game had more content, I took my time grinding and doing side quests and still beat the game in 7 hrs. I hope for a 2nd game with 3 or more times the content and story and maybe more playable characters.

Jennifufu
Jennifufu

Suuuuper cool! A tiny bit short and a touch repetitive with the limited attack types but that is to be expected with a smaller dev team. Needs a few adjustments here and there with minor spelling errors and one of the jack moves did not level up when it should have but overall really really good!

quixoticaxis
quixoticaxis

It is ok, I guess…
The game looks nice, but there are few enemies, the skillset is scarce (Actually, each skill is copied four times, once per damage type.) , and the character gets overleveled fast (even faster, if you choose "Hype" encounters) .

Milano
Milano

TL DR: solid (6.5-7)/10 but in laymen's term I say for the price of around 20 bucks CAD and avg 8 hours, worth buying and playing. Though there are issues.

Review
For the story, nowadays I don't expect RPGs to suddenly break new grounds, this is a story we easily understand and have seen
but it's about execution. What is frustrating is that I love the look of the game and the locations because it feels like there is so much to learn but the story never goes all out or fulfils the expectations. Sometimes it seems like its going to do that but then it stops or pulls back preventing a full emotional connection/release. Its fine but that's exactly it, its just fine. Too short as well.
They could have done so much more.

Characters
They are..fine =)
The Main characters are at least and the final villain.
Again feels though we could have really explored all of them but we get surface level characterisation but the game won't go deeper. Which is a shame cause I like the design but the game stays pixelated even for cutscenes so we can't enjoy it fully. Hopefully the sequel does them justice if there is one.

Music
This is where it gets tricky for me to judge. For me story, music and visuals make the game (gameplay too obviously but
these 3 are important to me). Now based on the size of the game in terms of story which determines the different areas
and battles, I understand why there aren't too many diverse tracks but the tracks do exist while I understand why they sound
they way they do, it doesn't wow me. They are fine to listen to while playing the game, but I won't be listening to them outside
of it. I would say most will get bored of the battle theme and the town theme possibly.
Basically don't expect much.

Gameplay
Hahaha this is easy and hard to explain.
Battles
There is a rock paper scissor dynamic for both offence and defence. Actually there is technically 4 elements so I don't know what game that signifies.

You have 2 sets of skills (may not be the right word): Software and Hardware
Software are skills that can be switched in the middle of the battle and outside to an extent and Hardware can only be set outside the battle so there is room for strategy but I will be honest, other than the final boss, I very rarely swapped during battle. This is more a nitpick but gameplay is more advanced then required ironically for this game. Its so easy to overpower regular battles
that once you have a setup going, I doubt you will do much.

You can buy more skills at shops of course and you definitely will.
Software skills can level up but don't pay too much attention to it as I could never tell how much more powerful they got.
I didn't see a tutorial but some stats are not obviously named. Like a speed buff in this game is called overclock so just figure out that stuff on your own.

In any case, like any RPG this will be more subjective. For me, I found it fun and enjoyable but kinda brain dead. I rarely used buffs and debuffs until final boss. But that is kinda what RPGs end up being lol.

Overworld
Something really nice this game has is the ability to toggle encounter rates allowing for exploration for any sort of reason. So A+ addition there.

There are sidequests but not too many, they are generally worth doing but not much stood out for me. There is also no indicator that certain NPCs will give sidequests so you will have to talk to everyone.

While the toggle for encounters exist, I do wish there was fast travel from one location to another.

The other npcs of this world are actually fun to talk too, some have relations with the MC so they have fun conversations. And after certain events, the dialogue will change so it keeps that fresh.

Final thoughts
So based on all the above, you may be thinking that my score should be lower but I am used to being devil's advocate. I did genuinely have fun playing this but I will admit I probably won't replay it anytime soon or even later.
Especially since there is no new game+.

My recommendation, if you still think 20ish $ CAD is too much, wait for a sale, and play once.
While there are better RPGs out there, I don't regret buying and playing this.

Please let me know if I miss talking about anything or didn't talk enough about something.
I hope this review aided you in some way.

Solljak
Solljak

So far so goo. A few minor glitches, but nothing too annoying. The characters are well written & the battle animations are addictive to watch.

Not overly keen on the side quests.

The RAM system can be confusing, for instance i had 12 RAM slots from using a removable mod upgrade, then apparently i permanently installed 5 or 7 ram slots which i purchased from a shop, but it wasn't really appearing in my RAM as any additional slots so i just gave up trying to figure that out, unequipped my ram mod and it didn't affect my RAM quantity.. It's probably my own incompetence but its still mildly annoying.

Either way, im enjoying the game!

BlackStarGabusGaben
BlackStarGabusGaben

A Good, Bite-Size RPG

The presentation is spot on. Excellent visuals (with impressive lighting) and quality music make this an indie attraction. Really the only blemish is repeated NPC and enemies but it's a small nitpick.

The combat is decent, only challenging when enemies have high hp or hit hard, but overall it's nothing to shout about. The final battle is a bit of a slog and somewhat anti-climatic.

Also, the game is very short, clocking in about 12 hours. That includes the (few) sidequests. Your mileage may vary on if this is a good thing or bad thing.

The characters are more than one-dimensional. It's amazing how much you learn about the main characters without there being a long arc or over-dramatic cutscenes and the NPC's are also amusing. Jack Move actually encourages you to talk to NPCs not just for questing but for funny banter. Noa is a very good lead, balancing sassyness with enough vulnerabilities to make her enduring.

Despite the issues, I would say this is worth a playthrough. There is no new game+ nor any difficulty options so replayability is low. But there is potential for a sequel.

Rating: 7/10

WhiteRabbit
WhiteRabbit

It was a fun play. Little disappointed on the play time and the side quests left much to be desired. The interactions with NPCs were fun at first, but after you realize there isn't any threads or side story lines with the NPCs, interacting with all of them is rather pointless. There isn't much to explore, and its pretty easy to optimize your build as well as level up. After mid game the encounters are mostly pointless. There is so much more the developers could have done to add play time. Overall this game is worth purchasing when there is a good sale.

Thor (Craft)
Thor (Craft)

I'm torn with this review. The game is good, it's just shockingly short. The majority of the game is spent grinding to level up. The complete story line felt like a prologue. I was genuinely surprised when the game ended. The game design is great, however as it stands now, the game needs a LOT more content. (The game design warrants the $20 price tag but the lack of content severely deducts from its overall worth. Right now, I feel like it's a very well designed $5 game)

Bronard
Bronard

Do you like Final Fantasy 7, but don't want (or can't) pour in 100s of hours to play a game. This is basically that, without the fantasy. Cyber as hell, short and sweet. Not too difficult (only died at the final boss a few times) and not very grindy. Everything about this game is A+. Art style, music, and all that.

Hope to see a sequel.

Cons: Can't drop or sell items. Say you want to get rid of the small health packets. You can't. Gotta use them all in battle.

(Tita)DaitylAxe
(Tita)DaitylAxe

Great Visuals, good music, memorable characters. Overall had a fantastic time with the game with my only major gripe being the difficulty near the end gets a bit absurd and while you can be pretty flexible throughout most of the game that final boss is like Navigating a minefield. But overall that's my only real gripe the game was a blast from start to end and for trophy hunters this is probably the easiest all achievements you'll ever get in a game because you'll earn the all naturally no absurd challenge or combing over minute details.

ined77
ined77

Great little pixel art retro JRPG set in a colorful cyberpunk world.
The story is very enjoyable if a bit short. The combat is done in the style of old Final Fantasy games.
A great experience overall.

Jace
Jace

As an RPG this game is simple and fun. As a "fresh take on JRPG", I'm not so sure on that. Ignoring that its fun, simple and short. I have some gripes but overall I would recommend this game if you are looking for a small distraction. The thing I like the most is that its not a dark and gritty cyberpunk game.

SerKikoSmore
SerKikoSmore

It's an alright game. Very pretty, nice music and a decent combat system with customization aspects. I suppose the issue is that the story is very basic. Which is fine but the game is about 8 hours from what I hear and I don't think the gameplay or story will be able to keep me invested for that long. I wish the story was a bit more fleshed out in order to really keep my going . I will finish it but I won't be fully wired in while playing.

senhal
senhal

Recommended for fans of the JRPG genre, with some caveats. As others have noted, the game is short. I took my time and talked to everyone, hit the level cap just before the final boss, and took about 10 hrs. The gameplay and combat are reminiscent of old SNES RPGs like Final Fantasy, though the pixel art animation reminds me more of old PC adventure games like Beneath a Steel Sky (although Jack Move is a far more upbeat future dystopia, if that makes sense). The music is great and the game overall has a nice sense of polish -- it played well with a controller and I didn't encounter a single bug.

But as you'll see in other reviews, the combat system is a bit simplistic. You have a physical attack (Hack) that honestly became useless for me after the early stages, since it can't be effectively upgraded (there are no equipable weapons) and is quickly outpaced by your "software" attacks (basically spells). As with classic JRPGs, you don't distribute ability points when you level up -- that's all automatic -- and the character stats listed on the inventory screen still remain a complete mystery to me (with names like "toughness," "grok," and "sass").

The software attacks (i.e. spells) and the corresponding "jack move" super moves fall into 4 different classes: cyberware, electroware, wetware, and physical. Each one is strong against one class and weak against another. What this means is that you basically spend most of the game deploying the appropriate software attacks depending on the enemy's class (helpfully indicated by their color). Without much enemy variety and with no equipment or party members, the combat gets pretty repetitive and predictable. The challenge comes in determining which 4 software abilities to equip at any given time, depending on how many RAM slots you've freed up (more advanced tiers of software requiring more RAM space). You can hot-swap your software choices during battle, which costs you a turn. It's a nice feature but I only ever had to do it in the final boss fight.

What's more, pretty much all of the major software in the game is available from the start in the main shop in town. There are a couple other stores in different parts of the map but their inventory -- with a few exceptions -- is exactly the same. By mid-game, with a little grinding, I bought the highest tier software attacks available and had all the RAM slots unlocked; I basically didn't need to change my strategy at all from that point. I completely ignored the host of buffs and status attacks, since the combat was so straightforward.

The draw here is the story and the cyberpunk setting. The main narrative is interesting and the characters relatable, with grief and loss being prominent themes. There are a few side quests but they're very minor and don't contribute much other than a little extra color. If you're interested I'd recommend checking out the demo: it'll give you a good sense for how you'll be spending the 8-12 hours it takes to finish the game.

Moghjubar
Moghjubar

A short but fun rpg. Jack Move doesn't really pad out the playtime a lot: things move pretty fast, you can turn off the encounters if you want to move on from an area, and most of the areas are pretty compact, and thats ok. You get out of the game what you want to put into it: All the townspeople constantly are changing dialogue and theres some unique interactions if you want to constantly chat them all up after each story beat and/or do all the sidequests or you can just move on and try to get thru the main storyline, maybe even as fast as possible with a low level run.

The battle mechanics start easy but get tougher later, but they are more or less always fair. Its really advantageous to use all of your options at the right times, and your hardware setup can determine what strategy you use.

My main complaint about the early experience is the extra Ram slot upgrades seem a bit bad: they start at +1 which is basically useless, and then by the time you can get the large upgrade its not really useful anymore as you have already upgraded your base slots enough and have other powerful hardware. Later, you have a handful of options you can change out depending on what you are doing, though usually if you play smart you wont have to rely on hardware at all, so thats nice.

Overall, I do wish there was more, but I did enjoy my experience just fine.

Neoman
Neoman

I bought this game with the Crosscode bundle for 15 dollars since I already owned Crosscode and I more or less got my money's worth.
Like other people said, this is a fairly short game. I beat it in 8 hours but I messed around quite a bit so it's certainly possible to do so faster.

Definitely the strongest part about this game is the presentation. The sprites are extremely well animated and very lively, which really does a lot for the experience. As well, the music is fantastic, there are some real great tracks and some are damn catchy.

The battle system is interesting but underutilized. I initially farmed credits just to get some customization going, but unfortunately most fights in the game do not require it. For the most part, going for the three elements + healing or physical will do just fine. I like the idea of on-the-fly customization, but it needs more depth than just "slot in the purple spell for the green enemy"
That being said, I appreciate this RPG being one where status effects work on bosses and I always like RPGs which let you use the turn order for planning.

People bag on the writing, but I honestly enjoyed the silly slang. It reminded me of Shadowrun or other similar sci-fi TRPGs so I was alright with it. I never felt like it got overbearing but YMMV. The writing gets into some real issues in the final act, it feels like it's trying to juggle too much and ends up feeling very rushed. Others said this game ends up feeling like a prologue and I have to agree.

I recommend this game if you're looking for a bite-sized RPG. I can't say it's revolutionary, but it's very enjoyable as it is and I hope the ideas introduced here will be expanded on.

New
New

Really liked it! anyone who's looking for a turn-based, fun, funny, interesting, and nerdy/geeky cyberpunk feel of a single player game, this one's for you! Short, but honestly it was a nice short game with a nice story. I also like Noa as a character. One thing I thought would happen is maybe there being other character who'd join the fight with you like the Tales or Final Fantasy series, but its only Noa. 10/10

KaoFloppy
KaoFloppy

Really liked:
- short game (12 hours for me but 4 hours for one of my steam friends! Hi Jab!)
- - I play a lot of Atlus games and I'm getting tired of spending 120+ hours per game.
- great pacing - never bored, never have to grind - music is fantastic
- hero is not the typical whiney/emo person like many other JRPGs
- the talk indicator that changes when you've already seen the dialog!
- - The author should patent this innovation...will make millions more from Square alone!

Liked:
- great story - decent characters - no cringe - decent pacing
- pixel art is well done - battles are fast
- battle system is tuned to be advantageous to the player
- - for example, blocking gives you back your turn after enemy attack
- - hence, most people think this game will be too easy

Didn't like:
- little strategy needed for the battle system
- - make use of blocking
- - spells software except damage/healing are hardly useful
- - - faster to just damage the enemies

lordpidey
lordpidey

Two hours in, and the combat system still seems really bland and has given me no additional options since I started, despite there being systems that clearly hint at there being more.

Spiteful Crow
Spiteful Crow

Jack Move has an entertaining story, a fun cast of characters, fun battles and some of the most gorgeous pixel art I've ever seen. It's really short and will probably take you about 6 hours to finish but the ride is a fun one. I can't say "it doesn't overstay it's welcome" here because it definitely feels like this game could be longer. This feels like the first arc of a longer game. I'm hoping for more from this in the future.

zuehtisham
zuehtisham

So i just came from finishing the prologue and absolutely loved it so now i've purchased the main game straight away . Honestly this thing is superb on the steam deck. Looks like an absolute dream. Big big big fan of the art style, and the whole cyber punk thing going on. I pretty much grew up on final fantasy... so yeah i'd recommend this JackMove 100%! - loving it so far!

Grumia
Grumia

Nothing really wrong with the game, but also nothing that was innovative or memorable. The best part about this game was the art. Story felt like a copy-paste from tons of other games. Nice time waster to play for an hour and then move on to something else. All the achievements are story based so it's an easy completion. Wait for a sale.

Overall a generous 7/10, more would have been better.

Rodin
Rodin

This is a very small scale RPG, everything about it on the small side really, from the combat to the story and overall length.

It plays like most any other turn based game, with an action bar at the top of the screen. enemies have weaknesses to exploit, you can buff yourself and debuff enemies, all very standard stuff. The primary areas where this game excels is in its art and music. The pixel art is excellent, while the areas to move around look fine, both the noa and the enemies you fight in combat and the npcs walking the look and animate great, the only knock on the art would be the extreme reuse/recolour of enemies. And while i don't think every track is an earworm, even the worst music in the game works to set a mood or tone.

The primary problems i have with the game are its simplicity in combat and the turn economy. Almost every fight can be won by just spamming whatever attack the enemy is weak to, and while that is the basis to most RPGs it feels more egregious here, you do have buffs, debuffs, etc to use in battle but you dont need to use them 90% of the time, and they only come into play during boss fights. Which is where my other problem, the turn economy is. Your party is only ever one character, Noa, so you only get one turn every batch of enemy turns, unless you guard and get two turns in a row, this leads to a lot of tedium, your first few moves in a boss fight will be to buff up and debuff the boss, then you slowly go onto spamming the boss weakness like regular fight, being slowly interrupted to either heal, or somewhat more inconsistently, re apply buffs and remove debuffs etc. This whole cycle for boss fight causes them to take so much longer than they would be fun to fight, its mostly just tedious, and the only real way they raise difficulty in the game is to just dump tons of HP only later bosses.

Also, while I do mostly like the writing and characters, it does come of as trying to be a bit to cute and it does feel somewhat cliche.

Ultimately I do recommend this game as I think its mostly cool and interesting and I like to support these types of things, but do go into it expecting a pretty stripped down game, but again its also very short so it doesn't really out stay its welcome.

Jedi Knite
Jedi Knite

I was surprised at how good this was. I loved the traditional turn-based fantasy RPG game mechanic re-themed in this 90's hackers-like-cyberpunk theme. In the beginning the language used to describe some of the buff/debuff software and hardware equips did get a confusing to understand. Luckily as you play it starts to come together. The visuals and animations are what originally drew in, and they are gorgeous. The game definitely scratched that traditional JRPG itch. The magic/software system has an easy to follow elemental wheel which will be the bulk of your combat skills. And the RAM slots to which you use to the manage which software to equip was clever as well. Some of these concepts might be common among cyberpunk table-tops, idk i've never played one but they are well done here.

My only complaint is that game was too short and that's not as bad as it sounds. I'm completed the game at the Max lvl, most side-quest completed and most software skills maxed at about 10.5 hours. I would think if one were trying to breeze through, they could do it in about 5.5-7 hours. The story was enjoyable and complete. The game just release last week on PC and I'm already wanting a squeal or dlc story updates.

Chris P
Chris P

This game has a lot of problems from the get go.

The main problem of this game's on its Story and Duration. I finished the whole game in 5.4 hours without taking into account the 30 minutes I spent taking a massive dump while this game is on. The game is relatively short specially considering its price.

It is a literary mess in terms of its plot. we are introduced to a world where a lot is happening and nothing is explained. Main casts are built in stereotypes which is not bad per se, but all of their development and explanation for their characters usually comes in a form of exposition dump between conversations of said character. The stakes of the story are presented in the same manner, making it less of a threat and more of a hollow urgency. The writing struggles to set its tone as it bounces back and forth between dialogues with serious connotation implied by having pretentious sci-fi jargon, and cringy, but bearable jokes.

The Battle system is designed like a common JRPG with a pinch of variety when it comes to customizing and the mini-game for the special moves. The difficulty of this game adequate for people who are not accustomed to JRPG battle systems, but it is a breeze for people who play JRPGs regularly. Enemy variety is not an issue for the game and it is surprisingly abundant considering the game's runtime. The battles became repetitive in the latter part of the game, but it could be neglected as the battle system of the game does not overstay its welcome given that the whole game can be finished in 5 hours xdd. Puzzles are non-existent in this game which is a letdown since games like this could use puzzles to make the game interesting and maybe stretch out the playtime of this game xdd.

The music in this game however, absolutely SLAPS. it really compliments the retro vibe that the game is set on. and the details in area and character designs are noticeable. This game has encapsulates the oppression and social hierarchy present in the game by using the environment as its leverage. Though the game falls flat on setting its tone in its writing, it succeeded in developing the disparity between the villain and protagonists through its design.

Overall it is a short and bitter experience. I know that the development is an indie company composed of few people. The game could be great if they have addressed the said problems, and I think this is a significant milestone for the developers, but I cannot justify its price for the experience that I have considering that you can also buy outstanding games for the same price.

5/10 I hope that the devs release a free expansion or an update for this game. It felt like the ending of chapter 1, rather than the ending of the whole game.

ChamAramis
ChamAramis

Delightful cyberpunk-themed turn-based RPG.

More people should play this, seriously. While not incredibly long, every minute I spent was a blast. Between the well-written dialogue and lore, the fun combat system, and the exploration of beautiful environments, Jack Move is sure to please any RPG or cyberpunk fans.

ragingusername
ragingusername

First off: Great game, but not without flaws.
Ascetics: very nice visually, honestly was not enjoying the background music.
Game play: fairly standard for a turn based RPG.
Game length: 4 hours in, and I think I am close to the end.
Difficulty: sadly, too easy. The problem with this is the game wants you to push the difficulty to HYPE. All that did was increase the spawns. Don't have a grievance with that, but it does not modify the mob spawns in the slightest. With how much damage you can deal opposed to how much damage you take, scaling is almost required to keep things interesting. Honestly, I have been breezing through with hack, counter-hack, the jack moves, and the high level heal software.
Last boss: it needed to be long and drawn out, and did not disappoint. Getting nailed by Jack Moves every couple of rounds actually brought a smile to my face. Would of liked if the attacks I took had more of a SLAM verses a WHAP, but can't win them all.

Andramal
Andramal

It's a cute game, with some decent dialogue going for it and not too complicated technique involved. Sadly a bit short for the process, and the ending wasn't too fanciful for all that it entails. I ponder what this game would have looked liked if it had gone a step further.

Still, not bad to grab whenever a sale pops up! I got it out of the Crosscode bundle, and if you haven't played that it's not a bad way to snag both for a bit extra while it's still going!

Panzer Bros
Panzer Bros

A fun, yet short, experience (100%, including secondary objectives, and saw the credits in 7 hours). Enjoyed most of my time playing, but is easy to get some upgrades and become near impossible to defeat except for the odd boss fight. Some bosses are noticeable difficulty spikes as well, but can be overcome surprisingly easily with the right gear.
Was always interesting things to do, none of the characters were annoying to interact with and the music was stellar (will be listening to the OST on and off in my own time).
My only real complaints are the game's length and lack of replayability. It is very short as mentioned previously, and paying full price for the length is questionable at best. I'd wait for sales or bundles before purchasing. If the game was longer, I'd more recommend the full price.
Still, for what it is, Jack Move is simply fun and that's what matters to me

tofuismyname
tofuismyname

I enjoyed playing this game quite a bit.

TL:DR. Buy this game if you're looking for a nice solo play game that scratches that RPG itch without sucking the life out of you.

It was addictive, quirky, interactive, and fun! I liked the following features:

1) When you're done talking to a NPC, it'll let you know. I think this allows for an immersive environment. I was able to know if someone was going to say something different from my last encounter with them, or I can just pass by them. Each "chapter" allowed an opportunity for the world to expand a little more. The future is 5 minute pizza delivery!

2) The encounter rate system. I plan on testing this a bit more, but, the game allows you to just explore without encounters, until you're ready. You can have that traditional JRPG feel of wandering in a dungeon, get random encounters, crank it up to 11 and have every hacker at your every footstep, or cruise down the streets without a care in the world about encounters. I plan on running through this again with a mix of the different encounter rates.

3) The battle system. Rock, Paper, Scissor....Bazooka? I like that each enemy had their own weakness/strength, and it would be exploited. It was fun to test out different abilities to see what was weak to what while also leveling up my skills.

4) Leveling up your skill. Use them, level them up, MOAR POWUH!

5) The environment. It was fun to stroll around the slums and talk to people. There are side-quests to be had, and the provide decent reward. It was colorful, imaginative, and felt like it could be a real place.

bountyfox
bountyfox

This is a hard review to write.. At the end I've chosen positive, What game there was is fun, the music is good. the animations in fights were good. Though the game has serious problems. A: It is very very short.. like flash game off newgrounds short. Few hours max.. B: Even with it being short. it quickly runs out of equipment and character upgrades before it's already short clock runs out. C: Alot of the non attack abilities and non healing items just don't have a point. Fights are never long enough for the defensive items and skills to matter. It's always better to attack or recover.

rawnkin
rawnkin

like concentrated JRPG; all taste and no fillers. Can be finished in less than 8 hours; has a good story, great music, fun (if a little simplstic) combat, and jaw-droppingly gorgeous pixel art. Smooth, beautiful, chunky, vibrant, clean pixel art. Does not reinvent the wheel, but is still well-worth enjoying IMO. It's honestly nice to get the JRPG fix without settling in for a 60+ hour game.

coldfrostgurl
coldfrostgurl

The one word to describe this game is FUN. This game was A LOT of fun! If you like games like Final Fantasy VII, you'll like this game. It's a very charming game. I made the mistake of assuming this game would be too easy. I paid for that mistake late game. I will say don't underestimate the game late game. Make sure that you're prepared before you go into the sewers. Be sure to buy Hyperderm, which is a major healing upgrade. Also, buy lots of Super Health Packets and Super Data Packets for late game.

If you get stuck somewhere like on a boss, my advice to anyone is you can ALWAYS level up near one of the soda machines without using any items. When you level up, it will make your health bar number greater. You might have to do that if you get stuck on a boss. You can turn on and turn off your encounters by hitting Escape and changing it there, which I did when I didn't want to use items and instead leveled up around the soda machines. I only did this late game, when I got stuck on a boss and didn't want to use the limited items I had.

For some reason I assumed that after I beat the game that I could go back and finish side quests. Apparently, you can't do that, so if you have any side quests you want to do, do them BEFORE you go into the sewers. I would have liked to have been able to go back and done the side quests after I beat the final boss. I was a little disappointed that the trailer animation for this game was not used in the game itself. There weren't any cut scenes with that smooth animation.

Even with a few things I might have changed, I still love this game. The environment, music, and characters draw you into the game's world. I found that to be very enjoyable. This game might not be as long as other JRPGs, but I found it the perfect length for this game. The story moved along at a good pace and didn't drag on.

The late game is way tougher than early to mid game. Just be prepared. Otherwise, you might get a real workout like I did.

runleveljames
runleveljames

Linear, old-school pixel art JRPG with flashy animations and basic combat system. Not a lot of grind, story is entertaining, short and to the point.

I particularly love that it doesn't go out of its way pander to the #CurrentThing church of wokeness, instead wisely opting to stay in its lane as what it is: an entertainment product.

Commodore Cockblock
Commodore Cockblock

Upfront, the best thing about this game is the pixel art. everything else is honestly underwhelming. However I do think there is a lot of groundwork for improvement in a potential sequel with the gameplay mechanics set up.

The enemies need more battle variety:
90% of the games enemies do something too simple like do damage or raise allies attack. when you finally do encounter any of said variety it's right before the end of the game which ends in an underwhelming slogfest of a bossfight. If enemies were able to inflict more creative status elements it'd make for much more interesting battles. Why can't an enemy scramble my ability to read my moves or take damage for its ally?

There are some serious oversights in terms of progression:
For instance you can level up to having max ram and hardware (active move pool size and number of equipment slots) before you even reach the second boss and within maybe 30 to 45 minutes of the first. (please balance the lackey enemy)
There is also an oversight in equipment progression, the ram expansion equipment should either not exist or allow for an amount of ram that is balanced but allow for an amount past the standard static upgrades. essentially unless a piece of hardware is the lesser version of another, no piece of equipment should be rendered completely useless like this. finally the penalty for death shouldn't be experience but credits. credits are much more valuable when it comes to expanding the player's capabilities and ultimately still gate the player despite the additional hurdle of having to be a certain level in order to buy end-game gear from the shop.

The early to mid game ends up being quite boring because despite the somewhat interesting rock paper scissors elements system they've set up for you it can be completely ignored in part because of the above exploits. I honestly think the elements should stay but the predictable rock-paper-scissors nature of them should be removed. What I would be interested in is a change in the relationship enemies have with the elements. Punish me for spamming a particular element across the board by having it heal the enemy instead or reflect the damage, not just do a little less, and uncouple the type of damage dealt from the weakness of the enemy or I'm just going to either run odds on what element spam I'm going to do for an area based on who deals the most damage or the rate of encountering a particular weakness,

The story beats vacillate between being pretty decent and cringe. Guin is easily the most interesting character, if a sequel were made I'd definitely like his past to be the main conflict of the story. The Ryder-Ming sub plot had some of the better and worst story moments of the game. You had me that Ryder was angry and I felt that but then he literally lights up an almost person-sized portrait of Ming to emphasize the point and I lost my immersion. Ryder is a genius cyber hacker in a cyberpunk setting, why does his character have a portrait of anyone rather than some other kind of medium? If you wanted to do that for anyone it should have been Guin and his sister. otherwise the npc dialogue varies between neat to understandably boring for the more myopic characters like random corpos. I wish there were more than three sidequest lines, its especially frustrating that it can appear that you've started three separate questlines near the start of the game only to have them to be the same one but you've forgotten to deliver a single item that linearly progresses to the next leg of the quest. Best feature of the dialogue is that the devs thought to let you know you've expended someone's dialogue I just wish some npcs were replaced with journals since a couple literally drop exposition the character already knows about

I really hope the developers continue this game as a series, the pixel art is super solid and will definitely bring people in if they just continue to improve and tweak the game to make it more engaging gameplay-wise

Big Slaz
Big Slaz

Fun short JRPG. Plenty of charm in the characters and world. The combat isn't hugely complex but still fun regardless. Definitely worth playing.

[Claw] Tonberry
[Claw] Tonberry

Pros:
- Very beautiful pixel art in modern 16-bit style!
- Turn-based RPG in the traditional way, which is a plus for fans of this style.
- The music fits the style of the game really well.
- The gameplay feels like it's well polished, and despite the flaws of the game it feels good.
- Nice RAM-system where you choose which abilities matter to you.
- The story and characters are about average, but it's definitely not bad enough to be a "con".
- The game has random encounters, but you can adjust the rate, and even disable it.

Cons:
- The game is way too easy. No bosses really requires any clever strategy, even though there are a lot of available abilities (called "software" in this game). If you like a challenge, this is not the game for you.
- Despite a good combat system, it's not utilized enough to keep the game interesting in the end.
- At the very last dungeon the random encounter combats really just felt tedious, not challenging, and not rewarding enough to endure, so I ended up doing something I would never expect I'd do for this type of game: Disable the random encounters entirely.
- There is no party. All you have is the one main character, which I think is one of the reasons why the combats gets boring after a while.

Overall a game worth playing for JRPG fans that does not care too much about the challenge. The good outshines the bad all in all, but I think I would give this game a neutral score if that was possible in Steam.

fmoo
fmoo

I enjoyed it. Total game time was about 7.5 hours. I backtracked constantly, did every side quest, talked to every NPC whenever they had new dialogue, even to long past areas, grinded a fair bit. Finished level 28.

If you like Sci-Fi themed turn-based RPGs, definitely pick it up.

jqgotter
jqgotter

Honestly, my biggest gripe with this game is its length. I completed everything, all side quests, max level, etc. in around nine and a half hours. I wanted more of this story, more of these characters, more of this world! Other than that, this game deserves at least a 9/10. The characters are actually rather complex, with a world that feels like it has developed around them and having a history outside of them. The environments are well-realized, and motivations make sense. Finally, in my limited experience with Cyberpunk style games, there's one constant: incredible music, and Jack Move does not disappoint. Overall, the experience was well worth it.

Tati The Wahoo
Tati The Wahoo

A really lovely RPG with some clear retro inspirations from all forms of media. The story is simple and has a clear draw from the get go. Dialogue, artwork and the music work in tandem to draw us into this cyberpunk/dystopian world. Everything in the game works so well together. It's easy enough to plug in and play the game just to enjoy it as it is but if you want to dig a little deeper into the world the player's time is still rewarded and respected.

The mechanics are fairly straightforward as far as JRPG combat is concerned. X beats Y beats Z beats X. The animations are crisp and inspiring. The music is fun beeps, boops, and bops I found myself bobbing along to on accident at times. The story is memorable and succinct with enough seriousness to enjoy but it doesn't take itself too seriously. The dialogue was so refreshing throughout the story.

Absolutely pick up this game when you feel like relaxing into a great cyberpunk adventure for a couple hours. It's a little on the short side as far as RPG's go, but after playing it through I find it refreshing to be playing a game that respects my time and knows when to progress and when to end.

gaverion
gaverion

Game is fun but a bit too short. The FFX inspiration in the battle system really shines though it is a bit limited by having a single character and not having enough bosses to take advantage of the cool mechanics leaves me wanting and expecting more to do.

Tofuraven
Tofuraven

Jack Move is another one of those small, but fun Indie titles.
The story's interesting (if relatively short), with a bunch of side quests spread around the map and quite a few character dialogue lines partially commenting on the game's events, if you're willing to listen to them every now and then. Some of the jokes and expressions are a little on the nose, but they do fit the classic cyberpunk setting.
The combat is relatively easy without needing to grind levels or use consumables unless you make major blunders - some kind of difficulty setting or more sophisticated enemy reactions couldn't have hurt here - but the variety of combat options you get along with boss fights being somewhat tactical is enough to not make it boring.

Definitely a recommendation from me, though you might want to wait for a sale. (Or not, supporting Indie studios is a great way to get more charming games like this one.)

deeray :]
deeray :]

An interesting game dripping with style, including fantastic art, music, and characters. The 'type effectiveness' combat is pretty simple, the story's length leaves you wanting more, and the game's final boss is way more challenging than the rest of the game's enemies would lead you to believe. Despite this, I still enjoyed myself and had a lot of fun. So this gets a thumbs-up from me!

Edit: This game feels right at home when played on Steam Deck.

Evagorn
Evagorn

I'll give it a tepid thumbs up. It's got an immense amount of style and charm with the visuals and sound, but the actual meat of the gameplay is pretty weak. Bare bones RPG combat, with the same enemies seemingly being repeated throughout. I found an area early on where the enemies were hitting three times as hard, but were still identical in terms of models and attacks. What was irritating is that I actually managed to cheese a couple and kill them with a combination of Jack Move and heal tanking with Counter-Hack, and they didn't even reward me any extra EXP or money than a battle against weaker enemies. Maybe EXP is calculated based on what level YOU are, rather than the level of the foes you fight, or these foes' EXP gains were intentionally reduced. Or something. That was pretty disappointing, since exploiting systems to gain massive power boosts is basically the nature of JRPGs, and it was sad to see Jack Move making that a possibility, but not letting the player actually realize it.

Anyway, decent game, though maybe get it on sale, since apparently it's short.

Eattheritch
Eattheritch

Really fun game, the mechanics make you feel a bit like a hacker, especially with the code input of the Jack Move. I enjoyed the characters and the world built.

My only negative is one of the only Black female characters in the game is an enemy labelled "Sassy [Subname]" and it feels so blatantly racist I'm not sure how the dev team didn't catch it.

Besides that, strong recommend that game

Some Kind of Wizard
Some Kind of Wizard

A wonderful game, with excellent dialogue, lots of little hidden lines. It was clean when it was rude, cheerful when it was sad, and the animations are all super cute.

I wasn't expecting a long game, but it's still a shame to have finished it, I eagerly look forward to more to come. I also 100% chip Noa and Lala. I hope they had a wonderful brunch.

Generally Break
Generally Break

Being a fan of JRPGs and Cyberpunk, I want to love this game, but I can't.

From a gameplay perspective, this is basically just an extremely simplistic "fantasy" combat system, with a superficial cyberpunk coat of paint. You spend you "data" to "execute" "software" to heal your character, and the "data" only comes back when you rest or use specific items. That this is obviously just magic thrown into a world without magic kind of makes it throw you out of the experience. Beyond that, the combat is extremely simplistic. You only have 1 party member, and all but maybe 2 boss fights boil down to "hit the enemy until you need to heal, then heal". There are a few buff/debuff/status spells, but they don't seem worth bothering with except in those maybe 2 fights.

From a story perspective, the game can't decide if it's a goofy comedy or a somber reflection of the pain of seeing your loved ones die. The story is at its best when it's the latter, but those more somber story moments feel so rushed and so infrequent that they are more disorienting than impactful when they pop up. Much more of the the dialog is devoted to really terrible technology puns like "chip-squeak." It feels like the developers didn't have the confidence to tell the story they really wanted, so it ends up drowned out in the not-so-good humor. There are actually some interesting ideas in the story, and a few good twists in the later plot, but they come at you so fast and so briefly that they feel surreal.

All that said, there is a lot going for this game, the visuals and music are mostly pretty good, and it feels like there is a real story buried in this. I'm hoping the developers can learn from this to fix the gameplay in whatever they do next, and have the confidence to really tell a story.

Killua
Killua

First game I played on my Steam Deck and very much enjoyed it. It is short, roughly 8 hours, but great experience regardless.

Sangamon
Sangamon

Pros:
Great pixel art
Expressive animation
Above average characterization
Tight map, no filler
Accessibility options are helpful
Varied perks and buffs
Easy to grasp combat system
Short length

Cons:
Gameplay loop is repetitive
Enemies pose no real threat by endgame
Map becomes unclear and confusing after the "Point of No Return"
Short length

Sangamon's Review:

This game has so much heart. It is clear that the devs poured their talents into this game. I love the pixel art! The animation is expressive and the world is interesting to explore. The game is short which is a pro or con depending on how you value money vs. time. For me it's a pro! I'm old and my time (and attention) is limited, which brings me to the cons ...

Unfortunately, the gameplay loop doesn't evolve after the first hour or so. The map is easy to explore, to a point, then it gets confusing after the "Point of No Return". I beat a giant robot, then got lost and wandered around for about 30 minutes. I decided that I got my money's worth, and stopped playing. I did not beat this game because I got lost, and the gameplay wasn't compelling enough to continue. Once you unlock buffs your character becomes OP and the combat becomes repetitive. The accessibility options help a bit, but not enough for me to complete the game.

I do still recommend this game despite my criticism! It's worth a playthrough and you may not hit the same snags I did.

hollythefey
hollythefey

I tried out the demo for Jack Move one a whim when it came out and found it to be a super charming game. When the full game finally came out, I jumped on it! This game is just lovely. The atmosphere is really nice, and feels quite realistic. As a love of cute cyberpunk girls, I really enjoy Noa and can sort of see some of myself in her. The music is likewise great and I utterly adore the post-combat jingle! Cannot recommend Jack Move strongly enough!

Aerumna
Aerumna

Short game. Great game. Touching story and light-hearted laugh-to-survive comedy woven into the gritty reality of the cyberpunk genre. The combat is a turn-order sort of affair with ways to buff/debuff, manipulate turn order, and other features all neatly rolled into a system that rewards paying attention but doesn't punish casual play. There is even a handful of difficulty modifiers to further tailor the game if it proves too challenging. The game circumvents the common random encounter struggle by putting the dial directly in the player's hands.

All in all, one of the best sub 10-hour game experiences I've had in years. I hope for a sequel.

j.cj
j.cj

Really engaging game with a good strategic battle system, some interesting characters. It's not a super long game, I found that it was just the right length. Although I thought the final boss was TOO LONG!. still it's a good game though.

Aardvarkian
Aardvarkian

i'll just say now that this game isn't doing anything inherently wrong. visually its very good! particularly in the animation department, very smooth. the overworld has the ambience set well, and there were times where i really got invested in the world. the game isn't long and you can have a good time with it, but..

this game's price is significantly higher than other indies i've played lately.

This is rarely something i'd harp on about at all, if the product is solid, i'm willing to part with whats asked within reason. i love the art and am happy to support the creators of the game, but it only exasperates some gripes i have with the game itself.

this game is a great art piece, but an inoffensive video game at best.
Despite what i said about the game being short, it still feels like it wastes your time.
Battles are fairly standard turn-based affairs with a turn order mechanic present that works fine. here's my main problem with combat.. it's slow. despite what i said before about the animations being excellent, fluid weighty movements, they take time, to the point where it actually felt like a detriment. Couple this with some really long encounters that have far too much hp for how surface level the combat actually is, and you lose interest pretty quickly..

on the topic of losing interest.
The story lacks a hook. gameplay is rarely the standout feature for short, top down rpgs. it's always a careful blend of solid storytelling with all the other factors that makes video games (plus a little innovation). Jack Move's story isn't bad per se, its just not interesting. there's some fun characters and great designs, but it failed to hold my interest for very long at all, the setting itself of a cyberpunky pixel art city was doing most of the heavy lifting but that only goes so far.

The music is fine. tonally consistent and fits the setting, somewhat unmemorable perhaps but its there to serve the setting mainly.

tldr: i can't in good faith recommend the game at full-price for what is offered when i can think of over a dozen titles with similar gameplay formats for roughly half the price. The game never does anything to earn that price point, everything within the game works fine, its just too basic from a mechanical level. the prime selling point are the visuals, theyre solid.
overall a 5/10 game from my own perspective. thanks for reading.

ᴍᴀᴅᴍᴀx
ᴍᴀᴅᴍᴀx

First discovered this game as Alpha Demo around 2019 since i'm checking every game updates and need say it's so good, beautiful pixel art design and excellent music. Played Alpha/Beta Demo which is amazing. Time has come and here it is, masterpiece that all waited for. My personal rating is 10/10. I wish you all Dev team nice success with your game, it's well deserved :)

Grimm_Salem
Grimm_Salem

It got the charm and it got the puns.

Been following this game for years, its great so far looking forward to finishing it. Will update when done

Frutz
Frutz

I've been following this game since the beta and now the final release has come.

Like in the previous versions, the graphics look absolutely phenomenal, they mix very well with the gameplay. The animations are also incredibly impressive. While turn-based combat is typically not my cup of tea I really enjoy the combat in this one. Something about it just feels good.

If you're a fan of turn-based RPGs, this one is a must get. If you're not, give the demo a try and you might be surprised by how fun it is.

zombiepaperscissors
zombiepaperscissors

I've been following Jack Move since late 2020, with an early demo that immediately impressed me. I've been in the Discord and following the tail-end of Jack Move's development since and I've been excited for the day to play the full game. The I.C.E. Breaker demo is a good vertical slice for how the game plays, and is the introduction here. Fortunately, if you played the I.C.E. Breaker demo, you can load your save file, so I think the only difference might be minor aesthetic or bug-type fixes.

This is a day one, first-play review, but I feel confident in saying that I think this will be a wonderful game.

Churchy
Churchy

Great game, really enjoying it

mistbased
mistbased

Played the demo and wishlisted the game. I purchased it the day it came out. It's quite a bit of fun, runs at 3840x1600 with no issues, great soundtrack, thoughtful and engaging old school RPG battles. Great game all around.

Mint
Mint

It's a great game, the pixel art, sound, and world design is exciting! If you like turned based games with areas to explore, abilities to level (including yourself), and acquire new ones, please give it a try!

Sneeexe
Sneeexe

Shows when you've already spoken to an NPC 10/10

TinyJustice24
TinyJustice24

So far so awesome!

I am really loving the turn based attacks, they give me time to think and react without feeling the stress of time pressure.

The art is undeniably beautiful and the depth of personalities in all the NPC's makes the world extremely immersive. I particularly like the level of detail to the curated language terms to represent a new sociolect in this modern world! I also appreciated the very British terms I came across on occasion.

So far I highly recommend this game. Although not the style game I usually go for, the clever story building from the start has me hooked, and I will certainly be clocking a few more hours in soon.

A few suggestions might include:
-Lower xp reduction upon death for the first few deaths. (I thought I had to go up to the river, and was shocked to lose 25% so easily)
-Health counter for enemies? Or make it clearer, I was not able to locate it when fighting. The boss at the end of the tutorial especially had me confused, I thought I was doing something wrong after they didn't die to a Jack Move
-Player guidance might be a little better. I really like the open world feeling, but I think a minimap or guidance markers might be beneficial? This can create more of a general help for quest progression, even if it is an indicator of what zone you need to be looking about in to progress. This could help with primary and secondary quests too.

Axeldanzer
Axeldanzer

So far this game is everything I could have hoped for. Playing with a controller gives a much better feel, in my opinion. I cant wait to see everything it has to offer!

Shard
Shard

Charming blend of retro design and modern sensibilities (with a great soundtrack). Always nice to see devs carrying on the tradition of turn-based RPGs!

☠Elimination☠
☠Elimination☠

Steam Deck Performance - 10/10
PC Performance - 10/10
Gameplay - 7/10
Graphics - 9.5/10
Style & Sound - 9/10
Story - 7/10

A absolutely stylish romp through a neon arcade Cyberpunk world with a turn-based JRPG style twist.

This game simply oozes with style from every point, graphics and animations for its 2D style are absolutely top notch for this type of game. Gameplay wise its a JRPG style game through and through, with turn based combat and a rock-paper-scissors style of weakness vs defence that you'd be right at home with if you've played things like Pokemon or Final Fantasy, except all the moves and customisation come from your Cyber Deck and your hacking programs. Very unique take. Music is very good here and stands out as a high point, unfortunately though there are only a handful of musical tracks so it does get a bit repetitive, luckily the tracks there are excellent so it never feels annoying.

Story wise the game is pretty easy to follow and pretty good. I think the story gets a bit -too- silly sometimes, I realise this is an intentional choice by the developer but there are certainly a few moments where I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at some of the story takes and silly dialogue. Overall though it is a decently well written and easy to follow story that seems to make sense and come together well early on without feeling like it drags or feels grindy.

Definitely a recommend for fans of 2D JRPG's and Cyberpunk.

papasanto73
papasanto73

HEY HEY! got off work today and bought Jack Move as soon as i got home! i gotta say i LOVE this game!! ....i ...i....i ADORE this game!! yes i said it! its so freakin RAD! im a 50 year old gamer who started with ATARI in 1982 and right now i feel 16 again!! thank you JACK MOVE!!!

InkEyes
InkEyes

While I haven't reached endgame and it feels a tad bit easy early on, game has a great story with nice dialogue, and a combat system that feels smooth to play because it isn't as convoluted with unnecessary animations as more recent turn based RPG's.
The ability to turn off enemy encounters when you grinded a zone enough is highly appreciated.
I like supporting Indie games. But if you feel like it's too expensive, wait for a sale, you won't regret it.

Flinch
Flinch

Who's ready to get JACKED?!?!
You can have Jack Moves automatically go perfectly.
No guitar hero for me thanks.

Noa looks like a soccer mom from 2012, set in a 2120 world. Only bad thing I can say about the game.
Guess it's better than here being overly edgy.

jorgemoreno.g25
jorgemoreno.g25

Fun experience, although I don't know if it is just me, but in some places it is a bit difficult to see.

Prophet of Profit
Prophet of Profit

The game is great, looks absolutely gorgeous --- probably one of the best looking pixel art games I've seen in a while. Would hard recommend so far, for the combat alone it's worth it. Nice little gem that I hope makes itself seen eventually!

MooMooMang
MooMooMang

I love this game! It's a JRPG that doesnt waste your time.
The battle mechanics are smooth like butter, and the pixel art is on point
My only criticism is that the name makes it sound like a Jackbox Party game

Judge Magister
Judge Magister

It's a short (8 hours) charming game. Recommend getting it on sale.

Han
Han

Excellent world building.

Interesting NPCs.

Fun combat.

I liiiike.

KingOfLur
KingOfLur

Just the type of turn-based pixel art game I needed! The pixel animation overall was so pleasing to the eyes, and the battles were a lot of fun! I love that we were given an option to turn off or raise the encounters so that we can grind or just concentrate on the puzzles to the game. Story wise was alright, nothing too amazing, but I enjoyed all of the characters as well as the little interactions with the NPCs. This game definitely made me miss turn base RPG style games, and for the price this game is absolutely worth your time! Hoping to see more from this team; thanks for the great time!

sdrhod
sdrhod

A beautiful pixel art world, clearly crafted with love and attention, and filled with charm by cool, unusual characters and funny dialogue. The story moves along at a nice pace, and the battles are punchy and rewarding.

Ultima
Ultima

Hey, that game you've been looking for? It's this one. Holy moly donust shop, this game is good.

Rinkyoh
Rinkyoh

This... is one heck of a Great Indie RPG in a Cyberpunk world and i really hope they make more of them definetly a must play for any RPG Fan even if it is on the shorter side worth it

Minyak Kayu Putih
Minyak Kayu Putih

love every aspect of the game!

grimulacrum
grimulacrum

What an awesome rpg. Its right up there with games like FF6 and Chrono Trigger but in a bite sized format. The dialogue is natural and also very funny and intelligent. The soundtrack is perfect. The game is stylish and beautiful like The Matrix. The programming jargon used for names and graffiti on walls is great. The characters and the story throughout the game are gripping and fun. I would love to see this game continue to become a series and maybe have an entry someday with a larger experience in the realm of rpg's.

Brutstorm
Brutstorm

Editing since I finished the game now.
Good JRPG, great modern pixel art. Turn based battles are fun and have a good pase.
The story draged me in, fun little side-qeusts,
Was not a 100% about the software(abilities) and hardware (passives/equiptment).
Do you can chance your software loadout in combat I did not find myself often needing to do that.
Do when facing the last boss it comes to its right.

kroket
kroket

The battle system is unique. I like this fresh idea. it's just that the story is too short. It's like i'm playing a demo.

Amocoru
Amocoru

If you like classic JRPGs there's not much to not like here. Fun soundtrack, interesting cyberpunk futuristic setting, fun main character. Classic turn-based style combat with a limit break-esque system. The only downside is there is a single party member. You can happily support this developer if you're a fan of JRPGs and not be disappointed.

Jakasmo ᕦʕ•͡ᴥ•ʔᕤ
Jakasmo ᕦʕ•͡ᴥ•ʔᕤ

Amazing medium/short game, well-maded.
I cannot wait for the future of this game, dlc's or more.

Because yep, 100% in story mode(easy) 9 hours. I do not complain, achievement were not enigmatic and follow great the story line. But since this is a nice game, It’s going to be long to wait.

I love retro-style game, that give us what we do not have, back in the day, a control; over it.

Nezberet
Nezberet

Only 2.5 hours in but I absolutely love this game. If I had 1 gripe it would be the length. According to other reviews i'm almost 1/3 of the way through it, but regardless of this it is really fun so far.

razeluxerex
razeluxerex

Ratings:
---------------------
Story - 3/5

Its pretty average as far as fantasy storylines go. Protagonist and her best bud against the big bad evil corporation. All in a stylistic retro style turn based rpg. I will say I really enjoyed the friendship with Noa and Ryder.
---------------------
Difficulty - 1/5

There's no difficulty options for this game and well there's really no challenge in the combats either so that's pretty much that. There are a lot of different options for skills, like standard buffs and debuffs, however they're completely useless as you're pretty much one shotting normal encounters very quickly.
---------------------
Graphics & Art - 4/5

I like the retro artstyle and the combat animations were great. Some of them were recycled especially the early attacks. But I dig the whole vibe of Bright Town.
---------------------
Combat System - 3/5

Turn based combat with Rock Paper Scissors element weaknesses. You have a bar that you charge up and do an ultimate attack.
---------------------

Final thoughts:

Total game time is about 10~ hours. If you gun down the story and ignore sidequests probably even shorter. If you expected a lengthier rpg or something more, don't get this game or wait for it to go on a sale. Its a really short game. If there was a mixed recommendation I would place it. I think its just an alright game.

Jetboy
Jetboy

I quite liked this game. I got from front to back in ~8 hours, to give a perspective of playtime. The mix of combat elements is fun to strategize with and makes you feel smart for correctly utilizing them. They're not complex, basically a 3 element weakness wheel with an odd mix in of physical attack weakness.

The music and art are really quite fantastic.

Where I felt a little let down is that the game began to feel a little on the simple side, but it completed before that feeling soured my feelings on it.

Overall a fun romp of cyberpunk world building that goes on just long enough to wish you could spend more time in the world that was created.

Kirk Motherfucking Cousins
Kirk Motherfuc…

Enjoyable, combat is slightly above average, looks nice, and story is simple and fun. Overall a pretty simple game which leads to a bit of stagnation despite it only being about 8-10 hours long.

Ricky
Ricky

The art is amazing, the combat is simple but fun.
Overall the game is what I consider "Short and Sweet" and worth the asking price and the time investment.

WillyJimm
WillyJimm

Fantastic game. Most excited about this game than any other in quite some time.

- wonderful retro cyberpunk art style.
- awesome combat system with a very unique single party member, quick swap system
- amazing jamming music overall, didnt care few of them.
- 100% worth the asking price, considering the length of the game (8-10 hrs)

if you love some old school JRPGs, this is a good weekend game for you. Excited to see more from this group.

Bad Ash
Bad Ash

The game is a nice blend of classical turn based rpg gameplay with some modern quality of life rpg features which allow the player to adjust the experience to their own preferences. The characters and the world they inhabit are brought to life by the excellent pixel art and animations. They story is enjoyable although it will leave most players wishing that it had been longer. I really enjoyed the game from its beginning to its conclusion and can see myself replaying it from time to time.

The Light of Icathia
The Light of Icathia

Too many people to talk to and your character walks too slow.

MasterSanjai
MasterSanjai

Overall, this game was great. I really loved the extra nerd that was in this game. It made the programmer in me very happy. I only wish there was more game left to play. Would recommend if you like turn-based JRPGs.

Here are more details if you care to read.

I bought this game the day it was released, and I was very surprised at how few bugs there were as I was playing (granted, I didn't go looking for them). There were a couple glitches here and there, but overall it didn't get in the way of enjoying the game. The overall experience was very clean for me.

The beginning felt like an information overload, especially with the game using different names for some of the traditional RPG mechanics. (Data = Mana, Software = Spells, Hardware = Equipment, etc.). However, I did like how that's pretty much all the tutorial in the game, and then you are left to figure out your own strategies. Along with that, I felt like the enemies were well designed to incentivize you to actually think about the moves you use in battle rather than just using your most powerful moves like I've seen in a lot of turn-based RPGs.

I also really loved the implementation of some of the battle mechanics. Cache (blocking) felt like an actually useful action. In most turn-based RPGs I've played, blocking always felt like a waste of a turn except for very specific occasions. On top of that, the ability to change your software (spells) mid-fight as a turn action was a really cool way to add another dimension of strategy to the battles.

Last couple of thoughts. The art was really good, kudos to the designers. The story felt rushed to me, but I still enjoyed it.

Organic Sheep
Organic Sheep

Great game for anyone who loves JRPG style games. art style is perfect and it's just simply a fun game to play.

Crax
Crax

Nine hours... Seriously? This game is only nine hours long? This might've been the dealbreaker for me if I didn't actually enjoy the game. When I checked out the Shop for the first few hours I thought, oh, maybe when we get to MonoHQ the world is REALLY going to open up, and I'll get to buy new Decks, new Software, and new Hardware! Checking the achievements, I've only unlocked like 4 out of 13 of them. I'm sure there are more content and more levels down the line!

Turns out I was wrong. Some Pokemon fangames probably have longer total content on their third/0.3 update. Words could not describe my disappointment when I blazed through the rest of the achievements in the last 4 hours. And it only took 9 hours because the final boss bugged like hell on me and I spent almost an hour trying to beat it. Like wow.

The maps aren't particularly varied, but I feel like there could definitely have been so much more sidequests and more visiting old maps. There are SO. MANY. interesting characters in the story and the large majority of them don't even get a sidequest. Right now, it really feels like the game is the FIRST arc of a long series or the first 3 chapters of an 12-chapter long game.

Gameplay was great, mind you. If it wasn't I absolutely would've put up a not recommended. Music was really great, pixel art looks fantastic (though the constant "mini screenshake" when moving around is a tad disorienting), and combat was really stylish. But all these positives just barely edges out the big negative that is IT'S JUST TOO SHORT MAN! There's not even an ominous after-credits epilogue or something like come on!

Coffea
Coffea

One of the better RPGs I've played. The art is fantastic and the music is incredible. My only complaints are the storyline is lacking, the game itself is very very short and it's a VERY easy game. To the point where I barely had to think while fighting anything, even in the main bosses.

I'd definitely recommend this to any fan of JRPGs, but maybe wait until it's on sale. Although easy and short, it's incredibly fun. I love the flashy animations when using new skills. I would have liked to have seen some more achievements as well - all of the achievements were story based and unavoidable as far as I'm aware.

[NDP] Deathmorehazard_DragonFist
[NDP] Deathmor…

RPG fans that never heard of this. Totally worth it guarantee. Give it a shot you wont regret it.

Falzar
Falzar

1 week before release i played the demo, it was a 20 minutes demo that was very underwhelming, but i still thought i should give the game a chance to see if it gets better later on.

It doesn't.

So the first thing i read about this game in the embed of the steam link was "a fresh take on the jrpg genre", and its probably the biggest problem of the game. It is really the most basic, mediocre turn base combat you can find.

Turn base combat, rock paper scissor elemental types plus physical, materia base skills with few spots (i had only 4 skills activated), no gear, no party. Does that sound like a fresh take to you?

So if the gameplay is so barebones it means is at least hard right? Well no, it is basic and easy. The start is easy, in the mid part they blow up the HP of enemies so you understand you should buy new skills, and once you do it the game is easy again. Mob enemies are generally harder than bosses because you are 1vs3 most of the time, while in bosses you can just debuff it and make it slow, while you have 2 turns to spam healings and hitting. There also some questionable decisions on the minor mechanics of the combat system but i don't think they matter (see some paragraphs below)

Now here is what is really the "fresh take": the setting being cyberpunk. Everything is written with tech terminology. The mana is called data, block and delay turn is called cache, melee combat is called hack? some of the terms don't even make sense of what they actually do. Also because we obviously live in a technological society we have people called "V-sync" or "Nullpointer", expresions like "Digits!" or "Oh my grind!", you know, normal behaviour if you ask me.

The story is pretty standard for a futuristic setting, it wasn't bad but also it wasn't good, pretty normal.

The artstyle is cool, the music is generally cool, which i think its why most people would don't mind the boring gameplay and will just play for the story, which is also present in the game itself because you have options to either skip every random encounter (yeah we have those here) or to insta win every battle when you want it.

So if you want to try this game because of the "fresh take in the jrpg genre" you will be disappointed, if you have played jrpgs before there is nothing new in this game, you have already played it before.

thecrashninja
thecrashninja

So this has been a fun little game. Roughly about 10 hours of game play, ( rather short honestly ) but a lot of fun.
Pixel art is really nice, characters are well animated, combat is enjoyable. ( even when grinding for levels ) Special attacks are really well done, and really beautifully animated.

Ran into one bug that caused me to Alt+F4 the game. When you have a buff up via software, and you try to install something else right after, the game will lock you in the changing software screen, and you have force close the game.

Aside from that little issue, the game was pretty fun, and well done. Definitely give it an 8 / 10.

@Devs, will there be any future continuation to this game ( DLC or possibly just more content added )

infinity9835
infinity9835

TLDR; I recommend it as I would an action movie based on a book. It's fine for what it is and I got what I thought it would be from the trailer, albeit still a tinge of regret and disappointment that there wasn't more depth in the systems, story, and length.

As other reviewers have pointed out, this game is short. I managed to achieve all side "objectives" and the main story in around 7 hours due to the relatively easy difficulty. The story is average, the combat is average, and the writing is average. There are no typos, but there are those typical quirky/cringe-worthy sentences here and there.. either through translation or through inexperience. The music and pixel art are quite nice for the setting and it does just leap off the screen with quality animations throughout. The UI is bright and utilitarian. You'll definitely want to play this game with a controller.

In terms of the core gameplay; which is what really matters - my advice would be to give the demo a try and if you like it; then expect another few hours of the same. Make sure to buy this on sale because there is no replayability and no randomness. You can't have different builds and there are no choices to be made. It is entirely linear. In terms of target demographic, Jack Move is clearly trying to aim for the folks who remember fondly the SNES rpgs of old. This includes those simple switch 'puzzles' in dungeons and the typical turn based fight/block/item battle system. The addition of being able to buy/swap new skills at first made me think it was going to be more complex than it ended up being. The addition of swapping out skills to target enemy weaknesses really only comes into play during boss fights - and really only the last one.

One additional note: Despite the colorful saturated art style; I would not recommend the game for children as there are topics around death and a scene where people are shot in a pixel art graphical style that has blood.

Ricardo_Milos
Ricardo_Milos

This game is good, but in the sewer have some bug when fight with enemies. but its very fun

rasabt
rasabt

fantastic little gem
a) the game's structure is like an oldschool jrpg (the good ones)
it's turnbased, combat mixed with realtime exploration
you kill enemies, get exp and cash. levelups increase all your main statistics, whereas cash allows you to buy new active and passive abilities and items.
b) everything is centered around the Cyberpunk setting (the genre, not the IP). which means your abilities, stats, everything pretty much revolves around hacking, cyberspace and co. ; imagine Shadowrun's deckrunning.
c) the game realy doesn't take itself to serious, but serious enough not to be annoyin. it's less constant slapstick and more tongue and cheek with a more upbeat vibe.
d) the OST is perfect. there's little else to say. it's high quality, offers what you would expect from a Cyberpunk-game, but with an 80s twist in some tracks (even spottet a track having oldschool Ridgeracer-influence).
the same goes for the soundeffects, they are meaty, they are well mixed and fit always the happening onscreen

for the pricetag there's actualy a lot here
progression mechanics are layered. basicaly your active skill-slots revolve around RAM, which you can perma upgrade along the way. each active ability uses a certain amount of RAM (imagine spells in other games, but to slot em you neet a limited ressource, which you can change and mix'n match at your leisure) to be slotted, using your limited "mana" to cast inbattle. active abilities range from direct damage spells and attacks, to buffs and debuffs for specific damage-types, to haste-like overclock spells and utility and healing-spells.
then there's the permanent hardware you can carry. which means auto-active/passive abilities you can slot. like getting certain buffs precast when combat starts, or staring combat while having the first turn always, increased crit chance, etc.
spells you use in combat level up to increase their damage.
then you get a special-move bar (the titular Jack Move), which fills with every action taken in combat and can be spend on high damage aoe attacks (including a very basic minigame).

the rest is you running around, doing small sidetasks, or searching for hidden chests in the enviroment. textboxes and writing are pretty good; yes, there's no voice acting, but conversations aren't drawn out, so reading the textboxes doesn't get annoin.
the 2D backrounds during normal exploration are pretty good, the screenshots definitly do em justice. but the combat realy stands out. it's hard to describe, but the art-design mixed with the banging OST and soundeffects is just a joy to behold.
the sudo 3rd person approach to combat inclusive perspective change and dynamic backround was a great idea, so was the way grinding and random encounters are handeled. basicly with 1 button press you can access your "deck" and change the intensity of random-encounters. want to grind? just up the frequency. want to just progess? turn it off. it's neatly integrated into the game's vibe.

there are some minor glitches/bugs i encountered, nothing you cannot work around. the save everywhere feature mixed with the auto-save also saves you alot of headache.

looking at the trailers and me beeing a pretty big Cyberpunk fan (genre, not the IP...well probably both) i already expected a pretty good game, but tbh. it's even better. very fun, very enjoyable. hope to see a sequel. 0

Punk_Kricket
Punk_Kricket

Jack Move captures that cyberpunk aesthetic and delivers it in a fast, punchy and mechanically easy to understand rpg experience that's a joy to play through. One of my concerns going in was that it'd lean too heavily into the trappings of cyberpunk as a genre, but what it gives us is a tight cast of characters that range from easily detestable to immensely enjoyable, like Uncle Guin.

Noa encapsulates being the spunky female lead tomboy without being insufferable, and leads with a massive amount of charm and heart, enhanced by how she interacts with characters close to her. If a diligent player talks to NPCs between events, you'll slowly piece together micro-stories that gives us backstories for some NPCs to have the world feel properly inhabited, but without it feeling needlessly bloated or without meaning.

Combat is stylish, fast, and punchy - although if I had one complaint, it's easy to overpower and remove all challenge from the game so if you want a fair run, then don't increase the encounter rate too high. Boss fights and mobs have personality, even if some of palette/move swaps in parts.

I haven't finished this game as of writing this, but the journey so far has been immersive, entertaining, and definitely a joy to play so I'd highly recommend it to people seeking to scratch a turn-based affair in the trappings of a cyberpunk world. The amount of polish to the environments and detail to sprites, interiors, and combat is slick, and a treat for fans who miss the days of jrpg sprite work.

RolDezJr17
RolDezJr17

Great game had a lot of laughs and cool story

joshyoel
joshyoel

7/10. Nothing all that innovative, but nothing really bad either.
It feels a little like the vision of the game was lost somewhere in the combat system, with its whole "limited space system" being under utilized. I went through 3/4 of the game without swapping my skills at all and didn't even feel like I was missing out on anything.
Story: meh. Nothing that makes me go "That feels shoehorned" but also nothing that made me say "didn't see that coming." The dialogue is quippy and felt very character informed. A shame these characters were fairly bare bones archetypes.
I will say however, the world building is fantastic. It takes the perfect approach to it: if you're just here for the story and don't talk to anyone you don't need to, you won't learn much, but talk to the NPCs and you get to see Noa's relationship with her town and how the town perceives her. The game also marks people you've already talked to, and it also updates almost every npc's dialogue after major story beats.
Music was good. I found myself jamming along to certain tracks, but nothing extremely memorable. However, there were times when the music got in the way of the story. For example, when Noa is all depressed that her dad died, the music is the regular theme for the area she's in, and it does not fit at all. This happens a few more times throughout the game. Even just straight up cutting the music in those scenes would have been better.
The game looks great. It really leans into its cyberpunk-dystopian theme in every aspect of the art from the menus, to the enemy designs, to the world and buildings, to the characters themselves. Minor gripe: taking a character sprite's face and putting it on top of the textbox for a major character as they're typing does not count as a character portrait.
The game runs great, and despite being a pixelated game, has support for all resolutions. I only encountered 3 bugs. One was that Noa's attack animations have a pretty good chance to just not go off when poison ticks. The move still resolved, but you don't see the move hit or how much damage it did. The other 2 were during the final boss. When transforming, the animations for "The Construct" transformation didn't load. Its attacks were animated, but it's idle animation never were. I didn't even know what I was fighting until it used an attack, at which point, The Construct would just be stuck on the last frame of whatever the last animation was. The other one was that I got stuck on the flying mech transformation around 75k hp or so of 99k. The boss just would not transform after that. If there was a third phase to that fight, I completely missed it.
Overall, Jack Move is good. Not bad, not great just good. If you're looking for a classic NES rpg, this is your game. If not, odds are you've seen about everything in this game somewhere else before. I'd wait for it to go on sale before buying it, however.

SitoNICE
SitoNICE

Great game, it has good story, colorful (for real) gameplay and addicted pixel art, love it !
Fuck Netflix, sit back, play this game and chill.

drdoug99
drdoug99

Fun game, worth the money for the time spent playing. If you like JRPG and Cyberpunk/SciFI, you'll like this.

Music is boppin and fits the game perfectly. I hope to see a sequel at some point, there is a lot of potential with the cast of characters in the game and plenty of room to expand just about everything with the in game world.

Story was engaging and keeps you going, nothing groundbreaking but it didn't need to be either.

Really cool little game, I want more of it!

davidjefferson699
davidjefferson699

Awesome jrpg!! Music is top notch! Must play!

Jakobson
Jakobson

Great game!
I've been wanting this since I played the demo about 2 years ago. I like the simple graphics and I love most of the soundstracks. The fact that you can actually goku-train and get way stronger than the story requires you to be, is amazing. I've had my fun training to super sayan level before taking on "the challenges", obliterating them in the process. While I had hoped that the whole game would be a little longer, I am glad I finished this one since I do not usually finish anything.
For me the whole game experience is a 9/10.

Flesh
Flesh

So far very good. Will update once I find Jack.

Dawn
Dawn

Neat little JRPG with decent gameplay and gigafloppin' storyline. I loved every minute of it. The characters are endearing and get decent development. Sadly the game is not the longest (took me about 14 hours with doing all there is to do and seeing all nooks and crannies), but still worth the money. 4/5*

TheQuestion
TheQuestion

Combat music has a "cymbal" during a portion of it that is instantly extremely grating.

It either forces you to constantly change volume or have it so low that the soundtrack, which seems good otherwise, can't be heard properly.

If you don't have particular sound sensitivity this probably won't be an issue.

Lokart
Lokart

Great short rpg game and you can get 100% achievement easily.

r1p_oderus
r1p_oderus

So I have been loving the story line and the game play is fantastic, except for after playing for so long... For one reason or the other the commands start glitching or just not working...

jake9066
jake9066

I think I'm around a quarter of the way through (maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less), and so far Jack Move has been great. Really nice pixel art, solid soundtrack, some nice quality-of-life features (getting to increase or decrease encounter rate depending on what I'm doing is nice), it's been good so far.

コトバさん
コトバさん

Really good and solid RPG, I just wanted it to be a liitle bit more difficult and long

Oridjinn
Oridjinn

Finally. An RPG that is actually playable.

An RPG that can figure out good systems you can actually make use of without an encyclopedia. And implements the absolute BEST leveling progression I have ever seen in an RPG. (While it still has unfortunate difficulty spikes for some later boss battles, it is otherwise a perfect flow.)

Sadly the games story builds towards 1 plot for most of the playtime, and then just shifts gears, throws away 80% of what it built and focuses the final act on. well other ideas.

This is easily the best RPG I have played this year. HIGHLY recommend!

Vero
Vero

it is a very short game for a RPG. i wish it could be longer.
This is very similar to playing pokemon.
combat mechanics are quite simple
The story is decent, nothing too fancy or out of this world.
I like how the game gives you the option to off or minimise random enemy encounters.
All in all i like the game, it is just too short.

Trusty
Trusty

Good music and art. Decent writing and characters. Incredibly barebones and repetitive combat and design. Every enemy will be reskinned multiple times and nearly every enemy in the game can be beaten by just spamming defend and nukes until you have to heal, even supposedly underleveled. I spent the first few turns against the final boss applying a few buffs and debuffs before spending about 30 straight minutes spamming nukes with a heal every 10 turns or so. Maybe I should have been higher level or used better hardware (equipment,) but really all that could have done is change it from long and easy to just easy.

If you're down for a very light shadowrun-esque jrpg than this might be for you but if you're looking for decent gameplay maybe skip it.

ntall1
ntall1

Decent short little RPG. Battle system was challenging for first half of game, then you become OP pretty fast. Contains The Message, but doesn't dominate, take center stage, or try to cram it down your throat.