Way back in September, we were privy to a preview of developer DON’T NOD’s game Jusant. The game was a gorgeous example of how well the Unreal Engine could be used, a clever collective of climbing puzzles to figure out, and a wonderous world of what once was and what could be. The concept of the game was simple, and the execution was nothing short of breathtaking, even in the short amount of time we had with it.
Fast forward a few months and Jusant has found its way to the PlayStation 5, and this time you are getting the full review. The game still contains everything we found during our preview session the first time around and this finished version is something to behold, as everything we assumed it would be after the small bit of gaming taste in September ended up being everything it finally was in this definitive version.
So, grab your climbing gear and rub those muscles down, it’s time to explore this game to its fullest.
A Journey of woe
The story of Jusant is the tale of the discovery and unveiling of the past. Much like the game Journey, where you’re given clues pointing to the fall of that game’s civilization, Jusant takes the same route with its breadcrumbs. Your main character is tasked with traversing large spiraling vertical landscapes to figure out what happened to its residents, as all of them have simply vanished. All they left behind were notes, visual clues, and haunting sounds and remnants. Along the way, you’re given help from a cute creature named Ballast, who gives you direction and sonar power that helps you progress deeper into the unsettling mystery.
The story presented had more questions than answers, but much like Journey, it seemed to unfold the world as you progressed through it. This type of story, where it silently crafts the tale on the fly through knick-knacks lying everywhere, paints a haunting yet intriguing picture of a world that was riding high but ran into some trouble that left it in its state that our character finds it in. The story is impactful and memorable and only stands second to the gameplay elements that help develop the interactive pieces and parts. The interactive portion of Jusant is very much the reason why you want to play it, as it plays well with the environments and helps you earn the substance that you’re trying to find to fill in the narrative blanks left behind.
Hook, line, and climber
The gameplay in Jusant is driven by simple and unique mechanics. For most of the game, you will be climbing upwards. Like a true rock-climbing experience, you must alternate your hands to progress the climbing. By pressing and alternating the L2/R2 buttons, your character moves upwards until they reach a ledge that they can grab onto. This mechanic is the most basic one in the game and it is the go-to mechanic when you’re trying to progress. The movement of this main mechanic makes sense within the adventure. Like a rock-climber, you must go back and forth between your hands and feet to make your way upward. It’s what you would expect from rock climbing.
While simple in style, its execution can be a chore to get used to when you’re in a tight situation in the game. While the game automatically gives you an anchor (will explain in a bit) you’re hooked onto before you even begin to climb the side of whatever rock you might be near, getting used to the alternating L2/R2 can sometimes feel like work. I know, I know. Work is okay when it comes to rock climbing but that doesn’t make it any less tedious. I can’t tell you how many times I just wanted my character to climb up the mountain by pressing one button like I was Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn but then had to remember I needed to do the work to get the cheddar cheese.
Now, having played this game for the last few months, I’m still not used to alternating between arms. It’s weird, and I can’t remember the last game, if any, that required me to move and progress through this method. It’s just odd. While it may be odd, it does make sense when you’re driving home the main rock-climbing component of the game. It certainly doesn’t make it less awkward, but it does make it more accurate with movement.
To temper the oddity of movement, and to give you some challenge with the mechanic’s ease of use, and in hindsight it is easy, the game throws in a stamina meter that pushes the player to quickly make it through the climbing process before the main character becomes too tired to climb. Once the latter happens, the main character can slip off the side of a rock and tumble downwards, which is never good for any rock-climbing scenario. The stamina meter also lowers as you progress, meaning that if you have a giant meter of stamina, maybe halfway through a climb the stamina meter wears down and only allows the user to refill it halfway. Eventually, the character will not have enough to comfortably move quickly through a rock climb and that can either be the fall of the character (literally) or it will force the character to slow down their progress. Once the player reaches a ledge and climbs up, this stamina will completely reset. It’s a good goal to set when you’re struggling to make strategic climbing decisions.
Now, the game does feature a ‘rest’ session to restore some of the stamina, as you can hit L3 on the controller to refill your stamina up to the refillable point, but it’s more of a last-ditch effort to make it through a climb. The stamina bar does present a challenge to the climbing mechanic, complicating the process and adding a layer of intrigue and strategy to climbing toward a location, but in hindsight, having a stamina bar makes complete sense. You’re climbing up a rock, you should get tired along the way. If you have ever rock-climbed in your life, then you know how your body feels as you climb up. It starts tight and wonderful, then slowly turns to jelly. The stamina bar fits the climbing mechanics and accurately pushes the art of climbing. While the idea of just climbing might seem somewhat finite in excitement and strategy, the game brings something else into the fold to help make the journey more interesting. To save your sanity on large climbs, and there are quite a few large climbs that the game throws at you to explore, the game adds a wonderful tool with a rope anchor.
As you progress upward, you also can place a rope anchor into the side of rocks, though finite in how many you can place on one line. The rope anchor adds a swinging motion to your climbing experience. That simple swinging movement changes how you climb and adds a new layer of strategy to your climbing arsenal. Sometimes swinging to destinations is a far better method of movement than simply climbing, jumping, and climbing more. The swinging motion allows you to de-stress during your ascent through the game and gives your poor fingers a break. Now, the caveat to this move introduction is that somehow it doesn’t affect your stamina. The usefulness of an anchor in real life is two-fold:
1) It prevents you from dying.
2) Allows you to rest your body.
My brothers used to rock climb when we lived in Kentucky, and rope anchors were always a saving grace in multiple ways. So, the first reason for their purpose is easy to figure out. Anything that can help you avoid falling to your death is a good thing.
Now, the second reason noted above for the anchor to exist goes against what the game gives you. As mentioned before, stamina fully returns in the game when your character makes it to a cliffside and allows you to pull up and stand up to gain full stamina recovery. By making it to a ledge, any restrictive measures to the stamina created by the climb reset back to normal. That makes sense, as you don’t have to use your body anymore other than to stand around complaining about how much your body hurts.
My question regarding the anchor is, why can’t it provide the same relief for the character and the stamina meter? It’s a bit baffling because just hanging on the anchor doesn’t fully reset the bar, though I can see that DON’T NOD’s intentions were to make the climbing mechanic challenging and strategic, and if the anchor relieved things that easily meant there was no real challenge. Logically, in the long run, it should be a full reset for stamina. Again, I get why they didn’t allow full stamina to reset with anchors, but realistically, it doesn’t make sense compared to how stamina resets. Yes, it bothers me. Yes, I will live with it because it doesn’t truly affect the gameplay other than to keep the challenge intact. The game is still fun as heck.
As you progress through the game using these tools, Jusant starts adding more options to work with, including Ballast. Ballast, a cute little creature that you carry on your backpack, is very much your guide through mucky waters when a puzzle becomes too hard or when you need a reminder of where you should be heading. You can initially operate the creature by having it cast out sonar by hitting up on the d-pad that affects plants on the rocks, which you can climb once they bloom or move. The inclusion of this Ballast trick adds more solutions to gradually more complicated climbing puzzles. You’ll find that the puzzles get more and more intense as you progress upwards. The game has several places where you’ll have to stop and look around just to get your bearings on the situation and using Ballast to activate solutions through sonar is necessary. Ballast is a wonderful additional tool for that type of situation.
Ballast is also a great part of literally showing points of interest during gameplay. By pressing right on the d-pad, Ballast will cast out another sonar that reveals color-coded spots on the screen. The spots help provide you with directions to where you need to get to next. In a way, Ballast can act as something that defuses stress or frustration in the situation. The creature is also used to simply distract and make the adventure somewhat cuter. In that respect, Ballast does a great job.
Overall, the gameplay mechanics play well more times than they do not with the gameplay design. They work well with the puzzles featured in Jusant which are clever as they are gradually more difficult. The dance the mechanics do with the puzzles helps force players into meaningful strategy when traversing the ground. The mechanics could help with questions like, do you use Ballast to get from point A to B? Do you climb area A to B through plants? Do you swing from the plant to the ledge after laying down a rope anchor? How many rope anchors do you secure to get to that large ledge up top? Regardless of the puzzles, the mechanics, as simple as they are to pull off, are so intricate when it comes to enjoying the game and seeing how well-designed most of the puzzles are in Jusant. This game is beautifully crafted with a wonderful balance of the right tools to use and puzzles to use them on. It’s just a gorgeous experience all the way around. Not perfect, but perfect enough to enjoy.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Jusant from developer Don’t Nod is a wonderful example of balancing well-crafted gameplay mechanics to perfectly matched puzzles to use them on. While not everything hits the right note, the game provides nothing less than a unique adve
