Before I begin the review, I feel I need to mention a mistake I made in my last blog entry. In Pitfall II, you don’t have to get all the gold bricks to beat the game. However, getting the bricks is good for getting more points and possibly achieving a perfect score. If you just want to win the game, all you need to do is find Rhonda(Harry’s niece), Quick-Claw the cowardly mountain lion, and the diamond ring.

Now on to the review of Jill of the Jungle.

Released in 1992 by Epic Megagames, Jill of the Jungle was a sensation in the growing shareware market. The way companies used to market their games was to release the first part or ‘episode’ of a series for free distribution, as sort of a demo or teaser, and charge a fairly cheap price for the full package which generally consisted of three episodes. It was a hit due to the amazing(in that day) graphics and soundblaster midi music, some cool puzzles, and possibly fan service.

This old MS Dos side-scroller game is one of the grandchildren of Pitfall, and has many of the elements, including pits of water, enemies with stationary or patterned movments, and occasional ’smart’ enemies that could follow your every move. Two notable Pitfall II features included unlimited lives and starting at the beginning of the level after ‘dying’. It also showed influences of Super Mario Bros. and Duke Nukem, both which Jill took a jab at in the shareware version(and somehow Epic Megagames avoided getting sued). To me, this was an exaggeration and an attempt to get people to buy a series which despite the superb graphics and sound, was mediocre at best.

In the first part, you start in a sort of two-dimensional side-view ‘overworld’ where you run, jump, and climb to different levels. There is a gem and a ‘gem gate’ at the beginning of the game to introduce you to the key system, and plenty of apples to keep your health up.  First level, you enter a world filled with the same square rocks and floating platforms you saw in the overworld, and animals like phoenixes(red flaming birds that make a psychedelic burst around you on contact and take away lots of health points) and frogs. Both are half your size and dangerous, and can be killed by a knife you find in that level. Note that you can only use that knife for that particular level, and will have to collect another one in the next. There is a bonus if you are playing for points, and you get it by jumping the floating platforms all the way to the left, and then jumping carefully to a ledge by the wall, and jumping into the “EPIC” hanging in the air. It’s cool, but not necessary to win the game. You could just pass the level quickly enough by running through.

The next is a forest with some cool music that evokes images of dancing Orion animal women from the Star Trek universe. You have to deal with annoying bees that you can’t kill, which come from a hive you must destroy to stop it from making more swarms of bees. A third level takes you to a multi-level hut, where you have dangerous obstacles such as snakes, crabs, intermittently flaming torches, and stones. It ends with a gigantic skull that lights up its eyes and makes a weird, spooky noise when you move in front of it. There’s also an underground level with a river, where you turn into a fish, and a few levels where you turn into phoenixes, and even one where you turn into a frog. The phoenix is fun to control and can shoot lots of fire projectiles, but in phoenix form you are vulnerable to water and will die if you touch it.

In some levels, the music can be soothing and zen-like, with an activision-ish skyline. In a couple others, including the Bonus level, the music is downright jarring and annoying. After completing the final level, the Plateau, you are treated to an ending sequence of Jill turning into a bird and then flying up into the middle of nowhere, amidst a background of planets and stars, and then turning into her human form once more and running and jumping through a grove of pink mushrooms. That sequence is followed by a short epilogue and then an advertisement for the other two games in the series. This is mostly hype, since some of the levels it mentioned, including the Demon’s Hideout, were not as exciting as they were cracked up to be. The music is the only reason why I didn’t just skip through all those ads. One nice touch though was the background music of the castle full of switch-activated knights - it gives a very chilling feeling!

The second episode, Jill Goes Underground, has no overworld, and the levels are all sequential. The starting music is different from what was played at the ending of the first game, and instead is a sort of eerie, slow zen-ish tune. As you make your way through the area, you have to deal with inchworms and rabbits(which are basically the frogs with a different sprite) until you make your way to the pit. Once you jump down that pit, you reach level 1 of Underground.

In that level, you use a spinning blade to destroy some weird giant slugs and other creatures, and occasionally avoid pits of spikes. After that and Montezuma’s castle, you head for the WORST level of the game. The music is quite hum-worthy and one of my favourite tunes from that game, but even that doesn’t save ‘Heck’ from being the most annoying and repetative level in the entire series.

You start with a level with a colour motif of red, orange, yellow, and black. It’s a nice set of colours but it makes the only enemies in that level - the demons - hard to see. The three spinning blades you get at the beginning do little to protect you from those things, which shoot fire at you with uncanny aim and do so much damage that you will find yourself starting over and over again until all the demons are killed. It takes several hits to kill just ONE demon, and you only get four points for doing so. There are so many of them above ground and in the cave below, that it will leave some people wishing for a way to skip it. One might argue that the point of the level is to be ‘annoying as heck’ but frankly, this is overdoing it a little.

If you can get past the Heck level, then the next one, a simple puzzle with rocks, platforms, and switches, is a nice cool-down. The next level is the Waterworld, where you get to become a fish and swim through a maze, shooting down jellyfish and other enemy creatures while looking for gems and keys. After that, you are taken to the Demonic Maze, which is mostly some hard puzzles but also includes “The Demon’s Hideout” with a single demon you cannot kill(demons are invulnerable to knives). Upon completion of that level, you are treated to the Bonus level which you can leave at any time or stay and rack up points. Next off is the much-hyped Land of Eternal Weirdness with different music than played in the demo in the first game. It’s the same tune played in the mushroom grove at the beginning of Jill Goes Underground.

The final level is interesting in that you have to control the direction you fall in to get all the keys. If you didn’t get them all, either press ‘x’ three times(a cheat which can be used in all levels) which gives you invulnerability to all but water/lava/spike hazards, a knife, and a key, or commit suicide in the lava. It has some mazes and a few bats, and you turn into a bird for part of the level. When you reach a certain point, the music changes to the title/mushroom grove music, and you jump to get these ‘extra jumping power’ icons, in order to jump higher until you reach the top and exit, ending the game.

In my opinion, the music is ok, but not as good as the first episode, with a couple exceptions. The sequential levels were also a surprise and rather annoying. Whereas some levels could be skipped in the first game, they could not in this one, with the exception of the bonus level.

Jill Saves the Prince, the final one, combines some of the better tunes of the first and second game, with some new ones. One nice touch is the first level, which has the background music of the ending sequence of the first one. Another beautiful song, my favourite, is that of the Pyramid, with a mysterious Egyptian feel. My sister even recorded it on a tape which we later lost.

One downside is the demons, which make a return starting in the Village level. The soft music neutralizes some of the annoyance, but the lack of a knife can make things difficult if the demon finds you. The knights from the first game return, and like in the first, are manipulated by switches. They don’t pursue you, but are deadly to touch.

The last level has an element of humour in it - it has as exit sign seen on many of the levels, but if you try to ‘exit’ it will give you a random razz, such as reminding you that this isn’t Jill goes to the End of the Level or something similar. The prince is imprisoned in a cell, and once you unlock it, the music changes to the title song. You drop into the cell and rescue the prince, then it cuts to the ending sequence, which is basically a cute little ending where Jill runs away with the prince and they get married.

There are a few problems with the game, including the constant restarts in some levels as I’ve mentioned before. The patterns are often also easy to recognize, and the levels become boring after awhile. Once you’ve beaten all three games, then there’s really nothing more to do. In a tradition started by the creators of games such as Adventure and Pitfall, the enemies almost always start in the same spots. After you’ve memorized everything, where is the challenge?

Even with awkward weapons - knives which follow you when thrown, spinning blades which sometimes richochet safely back to you, fire projectiles from your bird form, and ‘bullets’ from your fish form - the challenge soon goes away since there are no higher skill levels. The lack of lower skill levels will also frustrate children, until they lose interest.

On the positive side, the Jill series has made some innovations in music and graphics, as well as having a female for the role of the hero. Even if she is mainly just a big piece of eye-candy for basement-dwelling males, the fairer sex can enjoy the role-reversal this game provides, while listening to the compositions of the talented keyboardist Dan Froleich. It’s a pity that Epic never released a program the player could use to create custom levels, and perhaps even a second character so two people could play at the same time, either competing or cooperating.

This game would pave the way for another series, Jazz Jackrabbit, which this time targets the Sonic and Duke Nukem fans, providing better graphics and cool rock and dance compositions. It even possibly influenced the creators of Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider, two games where females get the spotlight!

So, if you want to try a fairly good Pitfall-type game with a female lead, you can still order the entire Jill series at the Epic Megagames website. Pirated copies are kind of hard to find but if you are desperate, you can find them. Only do this if you previously bought the series and then lost the discs, however, since it doesn’t cost a fortune.

Here’s where to order this and several other fine games: http://www.epicclassics.com/

Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed! Hate this post and want to write a better one? Join us!