Jungle Heart Review

Written by: David Laprad Published: February 16, 2005 You could call Jungle Heart from developer White Elephant either a platform game or a side-scrolling shooter and be correct in each case. Of course, you'd be missing the whole picture. The game takes elements of each genre and fuses them together in a playable and entertaining way. You take the role of a young elephant named Joy, who's sent off to save his jungle from dragons, vultures and other dubious creatures. Joy could be a distant cousin of Dumbo, as his big ears allow him to flap his way through levels and squirt water from his trunk at enemies. Water and energy for flight are available in limited supplies, however, so Joy must either gather more or ball up and roll across the landscape. While doing the latter, he can jump on top of enemies to kill them and hop onto tree trunks to reach greater heights. You can switch between flying and rolling with the press of a single key, should a situation call for it. Between levels, a wise monkey akin to Rafiki from Disney's The Lion King offers new gameplay instructions and warns Joy about the dangers ahead. One of the first things you'll discover is the value of a coconut. If our hero collects ten, he morphs into a fierce battle mammoth who can fire powerful bursts of water that have more range than his regular stream. Be careful, though, because a single hit to his health returns him to his regular, less brawny self. Each level is loaded with coconuts and extra health, so if you take a hit early on, don't despair. Like most side-scrolling shooters, Joy enters stage left and the screen starts scrolling; enemies appear at the right and either soar in patters across the display, dart toward our hero or hold their position and unleash a volley of fireballs. Occasionally, fiery stars that can damage Joy rain down on the tropical forest. Our brave champion also runs into boss creatures from time to time. One of the best things about Jungle Heart is its graphics. From the detailed Forest, Dark Jungle and Sky environments to the well-articulated animation for Joy, the game looks good. Although White Elephant employed traditional 2D animation and artwork (giving Jungle Heart the feel of a classic side-scroller), the screen is given depth through the use of smooth parallax scrolling. The visuals have flair, too; for example, when Joy knocks off an enemy bird, it explodes in a burst of feathers. Bright, colorful and professionally done, Jungle Heart is worth a look for its graphics. The sound, however, could use work. For starters, the music is decent, but there's not enough of it. What's more, some of the audio effects are off base. For instance, when you take down a wave of birds, it sounds like you're hitting keys on a typewriter. White Elephant also missed an opportunity to give Joy more character through audio, as I can't think of a single sound he makes, other than a slight roar when he turns into a mammoth. Jungle Heart does contain ambient sounds one would expect to hear in a tropical forest, so your speakers won't feel completely left out. The gameplay works, too, despite a couple of irritations. Joy soars through the levels with the greatest of ease and can switch between his airborne and rolling modes on the fly. The level design takes advantage of all of his abilities, allowing you to have an easier time getting through certain situations when you use a particular mode. (I found it easier to avoid the falling stars while rolling, for example.) In the end, the combination of the side-scrolling and platform elements feels natural. Unfortunately, I must issue two caveats. The most annoying is the tendency of Joy to get stuck on a piece of scenery or fall through a platform and get trapped in a portion of the screen from which there's no escape. The screen scrolls automatically, and if Joy is pushed off the display, he respawns in the middle of the action minus one unit of health. You can avoid this by playing through a level enough times to learn where the trouble spots are, but it's aggravating nonetheless. Also, while the overall difficulty of the game is perfect for casual players, the bosses sometimes prove to be too tough. The first one is a breeze, but the second (seen in the third screenshot above) throws boomerangs that circle back and can hit Joy, even if you dodge them. If one strikes our hero, he loses his mammoth power and must use his less effective water stream to do it in. White Elephant did a good job of working a bit of strategy into the boss battles, but the scuffles need fine-tuning in terms of their difficulty. Luckily, your progress is automatically saved at the start of each level, so if you die, you won't have to start over at the beginning of the game (unless someone starts a new game, as there's only one save slot). On the basis of Jungle Heart's graphics, I'm expecting good things from White Elephant in the future. The gameplay is fun, too, and should satisfy anyone who's craving a good side-scroller. You'll need patience to stick with Jungle Heart through its rough spots, but no one said saving the forests would be easy.