Yet another game based around a licensed property hits the market. A side-scrolling beat-‘em-up featuring the ever-incredible, ever-charismatic Jackie Chan. Torus Games had plenty of material to draw from to make an innovative and fun addition to the genre.

The game begins with one of the Dark Hand’s flunkies badgering Jackie for a scroll of some sort. From there the game continues as Jackie traverses the globe to find the eight scrolls before the Dark Hand does. At the end of every level (with the exception of one training level and the final stage), Jackie acquires a scroll, which allows him to perform a new special move or combination attack. This system works relatively well, especially since the more useful attacks are provided at the earlier stages. The flashier, but less useful moves (flip off the wall) are provided later on in the game. Each move is simple to execute and once you become familiar with the controls, you’ll be punching, kicking, and flipping around in no time. The controls are smooth and work predictably and fluidly. With a little time and a little creativity, you’ll find yourself brawling with a stylistic flair all your own.

The AI of the enemy characters is nothing spectacular and all fight rather predictably according to their customary roles in this type of game. For instance, there are the average flunkies that die off after two or three knockdowns and then, of course, the bigger flunkies that are a bit slower to react but take a few more hits before dying off completely. The lack of creativity on this end is a bit of a downer, but it’s also typical of the genre. Also lacking in variety are the weapons. If you’ve ever seen Jackie Chan at work (either in his movies or his cartoon counterpart), you’ll know that he’s incredibly adept at using nearly anything at hand as a fierce weapon. While the game tries to convey this by providing a variety of weapons from belts, to statues, to rocks, to boxes, to even fish, they all generally fall into two categories, a throwing weapon, or a short-range melee weapon. The fish, the umbrella, the whip, they all feel much the same. This is very much a disappointment, as once again the license involved should have sparked quite a bit of creativity in this area of the game. On the other hand, the bosses show a bit more creativity than the standard fare of buffed up versions of the standard enemies. In fact, fighting the bosses is quite interesting and challenging most of the time. Most will make you work a bit until you find a specific weakness of pattern that you can exploit to your advantage. Until that time, you’ll more likely find yourself on the losing end of the battle.

Graphically speaking, Jackie Chan Adventures does not disappoint. Although only one cut scene is shown at the beginning of the game, it is excellently done, and perfectly brings across the style of the cartoon series. Likewise, the game itself is reminiscent of the cartoon series’ style. Of special note are the backgrounds, which feature well-done locales such as the city around Uncle’s shop, tropical ruins, and on board a speeding train. The characters themselves, while lacking a bit in detail, are extremely well animated. Of special note is the Jackie Chan sprite, which animates fluidly as he performs jumping spinning hook kicks, backside kicks, back flips, and rolls.

On the aural side of things, sound effects and music work nicely together so that you’re more likely to keep the volume up rather than turn it off entirely. While the musical compositions for the game’s background music are nothing spectacular, there are a few high points, they fit their respective themes nicely and they are backed by Shin’en’s excellent sound engine. Considering sound effects, every hit provides a satisfying smacking sound, blocked hits provide a muffled hit sound, and priceless artifacts crunch appropriately when smashed to bits. Unfortunately, there seems to be only one or two sound effects for each of those actions, providing little in the way of variety. So, while the sounds and music do their job rather well, one just gets the feeling that it could have been much better with a little more time and effort.

With ten stages and three difficulty levels, there is high potential for a rather long lasting game (especially for this genre), but unfortunately, the difference in difficulties seems to be not an increase in the AI’s intelligence, but just a greater potential to block your hits from time to time, and making Jackie’s life bar last just a tad less than before. While this does provide for a greater challenge, it seems a bit artificial, and doesn’t really add to the value of the package. In fact, it’s more fun to just pick up the game on the easy level and romp through the levels with the flashiest combinations you can manage. Furthermore, the challenge is never all that great as you are given unlimited continues throughout the game. Also decreasing the games longevity by a large degree is the lack of selectable characters. Jackie is the one and only character that you can use in the entire game. Once again, the lack of creativity with the license is a glaring flaw. Anyone who has watched the series can come up with many viable prospects for additional characters, such as Uncle (not as fast as Jackie, but a bit more devastating moves), Tohru (typical slow, but strong character), and even possibly Jade (Jackie’s niece). Unfortunately, only Jackie was made available.

Overall, the game provides an entertaining romp, and is better than the average game in the genre. Yet there is this nagging sense of what could have been. With a bit more imagination they could have made a good game great. As it is, it’s fun game to play through once and mildly entertaining to pick up once and again. Fans of the man or the series should try it but should be wary, as the license isn’t used quite as well as it could have been. Ultimately though, any gamer will find it worth checking out.