Jazz: Trump’s Journey (PC)
Jazz: Trump’s Journey is one of those unexpected titles that could have very well compromised The Game Hoard’s goal of playing every officially released video game. Released on PC, the PlayStation Vita, and mobile platforms, it slowly began disappearing from those places one by one, likely because the developer Egg Ball seemingly shut down shortly after the PlayStation Vita release. It never made its way to Steam despite initially being planned for it, and after its removal from digital storefronts, it seemed like it was doomed to disappear… but the only reason I even knew of the game was because it appeared amidst a list of games that can be streamed through Blacknut.com’s game streaming service. While signing up for their subscription service involved jumping through some odd hoops and it has the occasional small hiccups common to game streaming like quality dips and spikes in input delay, I was able to start a Blacknut subscription and immediately set to playing this game that could have otherwise slipped out of my grip.
Jazz: Trump’s Journey touts itself as a tribute to Louis Armstrong’s life, but don’t expect this to tie into his history at all. Instead, our hero Trump is just another jazz musician looking to make it big, the game taking place in the early twentieth century and slightly mirroring Satchmo’s early start as the game’s setting is the city of New Orleans. Trump’s grandmother pushes the young musician to take a chance and go compete in the upcoming music competition. Trump is hoping to inject a little jazz into the affair, with the game actually lightly tackling the racist issues that at first impede our hero from gaining recognition for his talent, but most of the story is there to just string together why the next level involves parade floats or why Trump finds himself platforming through a prison. Perhaps the most interesting part of the plot though is that, while a silhouetted version of Trump from later in his life is narrating the course of events, when characters in cutscenes speak, the game goes for a full on silent movie homage. Already the art style makes the cast look like the old-fashioned rubber hose cartoons, but then the dialogue is delivered on static black screens with white text that follows the lip-flapping it is meant to line up with.
The cute touch for the presentation definitely gives Jazz: Trump’s Journey a good bit of character, but for a game that is deliberately set in the Jazz Age and name’s itself after it, you better believe the game’s got a strong jazz soundtrack backing it. The jazz background music is definitely the game’s strongest element, each song catchy and incorporating a good selection of instruments to match the progress of the story. Trump begins with only his trumpet, but during his adventure he starts assembling a little band with a trombone, double bass, and banjo player that lead to the music’s growth as they join in. That’s not to say the early tracks are as barren as a single trumpet playing, but the music having a fuller sound to it as the game progresses makes a good deal of sense. A bit less interesting is how few tracks the game has overall despite this, but this is likely because the game’s unique settings are rather low, the trek to New Orleans, the city itself, a prison, and a theater being the main unique sets with some places like the city being revisited rather than the game continuing to explore new locales.
Looking at only the gameplay, Jazz: Trump’s Journey is a puzzle platformer that could definitely use some tuning up. Trump’s jump is relied on through most of the journey, and yet, it’s not as precise as you might hope, especially when later levels start working in precision jumps where being a little bit off leads to an instant death. It’s no coincidence that Jazz: Trump’s Journey is flush with frequent checkpoints, your one-hit deaths necessitating them to avoid the game becoming a frustrating affair. It’s easier to stomach the discrepancy between ease of control and the requirements made of you when you can pop back into the action almost immediately, but the late game does like to make things more difficult by spacing them out just a little more. These harder challenges do at least test how good you’ve gotten the game, but losing because of the slippery jump or spikes dealing damage from the sides becomes rather annoying here. I have played other games on Blacknut since this one, including ones with precise movement requirements, and they played relatively fine, so this seems to be a baked in issue with the design, much in the same way that swinging from cables always feels rather awkward because the cables themselves don’t fluidly move. Luckily, the wall jumps are at least straightforward and the areas testing your skill with leaping from wall to wall accommodate the maneuver properly, only willing to get difficult because they’re optional.
The puzzle element of this puzzle platformer derives from Trump’s trumpet, the instrument somehow able to halt the passage of time at will. Play a note on the instrument and the world will freeze until you either play another note or make it to the next subarea of the level. This mechanic is put to the test throughout the entire game, from things as simple as stopping platforms or dropping crates when they’re in the right spot so you can cross gaps to more unusual applications like freezing the music notes that speakers spit out so you can turn them into springy sound bubbles you can bounce across. That bubble leaping is sloppy sadly, but the time stop continues to have new uses introduced to it like stopping enemy cops in place so you can bounce off their helmets to higher ground. You need to be standing still on the ground to use the power so sections like the automatically moving ladders you hang from are just movement challenges solely, but there’s a decent mix of ideas on how that trumpet can alter the rhythm of the world to either protect Trump from danger or open up new platforming opportunities for him.
However, the game also has a lot of objects that just ignore the time stopping powers of your trumpet. Objects of interest are often marked with a treble clef symbol, and if it is green and clear, that is one of the objects that is playing some role in the time-stopping puzzle. If that treble clef is crossed out and encircled in a red ring, this means the object in question will continue to move regardless of whether time is stopped or not, so many of the puzzles are about finding out how to manipulate the objects you can control while factoring in the ones that are still moving unimpeded. Much like the late game gets carried away with precise jumps though, it also starts to really enjoy just having puzzles where you don’t really control pretty much any part of the challenge save maybe one or two platforms. These timing challenges aren’t bad, but they strip away the unique mechanic and start to boil down to avoiding spikes or leaping off platforms at the right time instead of actively engaging your brain.
The boss fights don’t even have your trumpet as a part of them. Instead, a man in a white suit stands in your way at different parts and uses your stolen trumpet to attack you with dangerous sour notes. While he brings new attacks to each battle, many of these fights have to be learned by dying to them a few times since avoiding attacks involve the right placement or perfectly timed jumps. Each bit of damage you deal is a checkpoint, but these fights don’t feel like a good match for the rest of the game save for its weaker precision focused moments. Most of Jazz: Trump’s Journey engages with your trumpet powers or at least presents platforming challenges where you can figure out what you need to do before you attempt to execute it. Even if you decide to go for optional collectibles like the music notes scattered around the levels or the photos, these are either hidden in nooks that you’re naturally compelled to explore since they break away from the mostly utilitarian level geometry or reward you for doing something a little more challenging. They don’t require hurling yourself to your doom very often, but while the boss fights are against the grain of the rest of the title, they are at least rare and can be pushed past without really aggravating the player.
THE VERDICT: The excellent jazz soundtrack and nifty old-fashioned presentation of Jazz: Trump’s Journey certainly gives it a good level of charm, but this puzzle platformer struggles with a few of the basics. The quirks to your jumping really start to show when the game asks for precision late in the adventure, and the boss fights require too much trial and error to overcome. The game patches over some of its weaknesses with abundant checkpoints, and the time-stopping puzzles can provide a good amount of enjoyable challenges across the jazzy journey, but the gameplay flubs still pop up a bit too frequently to be able to get a good groove going.
And so, I give Jazz: Trump’s Journey for PC…
An OKAY rating. A stylish presentation and a time stop mechanic that is put to good use in parts gives people a reason to play Jazz: Trump’s Journey, but the little problems nearly take it away. The boss fights are unenjoyable because of how focused they are on learning through dying, but they’re short enough that you don’t get burned out pushing through them. The later areas start making more demands of your somewhat sloppy jump controls, but the checkpoints are still spaced rather generously to avoid anything becoming so frustrating that you want to stop playing. It’s classic mixed bag scenario where the the strengths and weaknesses aren’t exceptional enough in either direction to really define the experience, but the road to improvement is easy to visualize. Tighten the controls and keep the time stopping element present in boss fights and later challenges and you’re on the path to a puzzle platformer that still probably needs some sort of big idea to really shine, but at least with these changes you won’t keep running into moments that kill the mild buzz the decent puzzles and level navigation otherwise provide.
While Jazz: Trump’s Journey has its small issues, the game turning out to be rather mediocre almost makes the risk of it disappearing a bit less worrying. Beside the art direction and quality jazz soundtrack, it doesn’t seem to be bringing many new ideas to the table nor does it excel at the basics enough to stand out. An ambitious failure would be a shame to lose because of its attempt to innovate, and a good game is painful to lose for the obvious reasons, but these middle of the road experiences really do feel like their disappearance wouldn’t end up on many peoples’ radars. No video game deserves to disappear and I do hope that Jazz: Trump’s Journey can find a more permanent home besides an online game streaming service, but I’m not surprised I only learned of it because I was already looking into Blacknut. Maybe it won’t appeal to many people because of its uneven design, but there might be people out there a jazzy little platformer could appeal to, and they deserve the choice to give it a shot without having to jump through unusual hoops to find it.