Hive Jump, as well as the code I received for this review, comes to us from Graphite Lab. It’s a 2-D action rogue-like, with randomly generated levels. Yes, I know, there are way too many of those on the eShop already. Please, humor me, because this one had me thinking about Starship Troopers at times. Reviewer: Frankie W. Developer: Graphite Lab Publisher: Graphite Lab Category: Action, Multiplayer, Rogue-lite, Metroidvania Release Date: 1.11.2019 Price (at time of review): $9.99 Buy Hive Jump from the Nintendo eShop here. A War of Attrition It’s not often I find myself standing up from my seat, screaming at the scr. Hive Jump aims to provide solid action and a good challenge — but one that is fair as well. In execution, what you wind up with is a different-feeling game that is still somewhat familiar, but. Hive Jump, as well as the code I received for this review, comes to us from Graphite Lab. It’s a 2-D action roguelike, with randomly generated levels. Yes, I know, there are way too many of those on the eShop already. Please, humor me, because this one had me thinking about Starship Troopers at times.
- Hive Jump Review Consumer Reports
- Hive Jump Review Movie
- Hive Jump Switch Review
- Hive Jump Review Games
Hive Jump is a 2D platformer with a lot of run-and-gun elements implemented in this game. You can play alone, online, or locally with friends. You play as a JUMPER and go into alien hives, to survive and complete the mission you must blast through waves of aliens.
| Title | Hive Jump |
|---|---|
| Developer | Graphite Lab |
| Publisher | Graphite Lab |
| Release Date | September 28th, 2017 |
| Genre | Run and Gun, Tower Defense |
| Platform | PC, Wii U |
| Age Rating | T for Teen – Blood, Violence |
| Official Website | |
Note: The author backed Hive Jump for $30
It’s hard crowdfunding games as a Nintendo fan. You wouldn’t think there would be any correlation, but I’ve found a consistent pattern that whenever a game gets crowdfunded for a Nintendo console, those versions of the game always come out last. This could be because Nintendo’s systems are harder to port games to, or it could be because getting NoA’s permission to bring a game to their console is prohibitive, but whatever the reason, there’s always a long wait involved. That means that years after backing a game and watching it come out on all other consoles, I’ll be not so patiently waiting for it to come to my 3DS, Wii U or Switch. Today, that game is Hive Jump. Successfully funded back in 2014, 3 years later Hive Jump has finally found its way to my Wii U. Offering a different version of the game experience catered to Nintendo’s awkward console, was it worth the wait?
While oprainfall did previewHive Jump on Steam back in April, there are some noteworthy differences in the Wii U build. First let’s get one thing out of the way — there is no online multiplayer in this version of the game. Initially that factor didn’t bother me (more on that later), mostly because I was delighted to see Graphite Lab stick to their promise of bringing Hive Jump to the Wii U. Though there is the concession of local co-op, I personally was unable to try that aspect of the game out. Instead, I focused primarily on the Wii U Campaign mode.
I was only able to beat the Easy side of Campaign, I can’t imagine how difficult the others are…
This single player mode is a mixture of the base Hive Jump experience and a somewhat vague tower defense mechanic. I say it’s vague for the simple reason that there is no tutorial explaining how the tower defense works. There’s one for the combat, which is very helpful, but I was a bit at a loss when I started playing Campaign mode. More than once, while trying to enter a Hive, I accidentally replayed the lengthy opening monologue. I was also totally unaware that I could upgrade my forts to increase their durability against filthy bug assaults and protect them from being infiltrated. I also didn’t realize I was supposed to either spend Goo to initiate a tactical maneuver, such as psychically scanning the Hive strength, or simply end my turn, allowing the Ordovician menace to attack the nearest human outposts. Once that happens, you’re given the option to jump the nearest Hive, which is the meat of the experience.
I like the idea of a Tower Defense, but it’s pretty barebones here.
The basic loop of the Hive Jump experience is pretty fun and addictive. Your goal is to enter a Hive, blast your way through hordes of Ordovician foes, and eventually face off against a giant boss. Some Hives are larger, and feature multiple bosses and many floors. The map will be revealed on the Gamepad as you explore, which is a nice touch for this particular version. While Hives are procedurally generated, there’s only a small handful of variations you’ll encounter. I wish there was more variety, as in Campaign mode I just essentially played the same three to four types of Hives over and over until I got to the Queen (mostly fire, ice and fungus). Though they look different, most hives pretty much play the same, other than offering some gimmick to mix things up, such as giant mushrooms you can bounce off of, or dangerous pools of lava and acid. This might sound pretty basic, but Hive Jump manages to mix things up with the smart upgrade system.
Blast that nest before it spawns more Ordovicians!
Every time you blast a bug to smithereens, they’ll erupt in a shower of yellow Goo. This isn’t just to gross you out — Goo is the key item used to upgrade your weapons! Both before jumping a Hive and during checkpoints between sections, you can spend Goo to unlock and upgrade a wide variety of Rifles, Grenades and Utility items. Though I unlocked a couple of Rifles such as Flamethrowers, I really preferred the starting Pulse Rounds, since they fired quickly and when upgraded could penetrate Ordovician shells with ease. As for Grenades, I quickly became fond of the ones that emitted a poison cloud, doing massive damage to hordes of foes and melting them to slag. The Utility items are quite varied, ranging from explosive teleportation from your Transponder Backpack to a healing Rejuvenation Field. There’s a ton of stuff you can unlock to cater the experience to your preferences, and that’s one of the strongest aspects of the game.
Hearkening back to movies such as Starship Troopers, in Hive Jump, there is no sole hero. Instead, you control a steady stream of disposable grunts who come equipped with whatever loadout you prefer. While their names will change, they are all essentially faceless avatars, which makes it easier to part with them on such a regular basis. You see, the goal isn’t to protect your character, but to protect their Transponder Backpack. This allows a new grunt to be teleported into the battle, and your job is to protect it. The tricky part is, whenever your character is killed, your Backpack will be defenseless for a few panicky seconds. You can float it around with the joystick, but that’s it. Enemies can and will mercilessly attack it in the hope of extinguishing the human threat. So while the individual humans don’t matter, it’s important not to keep dying foolishly.
To aid you in staying alive, there are a variety of random Perks you can unlock each time you assault a Hive. These can be found one of two ways — either in a chest you find while exploring a Hive, or in a special challenge room. The latter is far more common, and often is a sort of platforming challenge you have to successfully navigate. These range from jumping over pools of acid to avoiding deadly ceiling icicles to nimbly leaping around a room full of instant death spikes. Thankfully the challenge rooms don’t include actual enemies, but you need to be careful, as death often lurks in the most surprising corners. Once you beat a challenge room or luck into finding a chest, you’ll get a random Perk, such as reduced knockback, Backpack healing, protection from acid and much more. My only problem with the Perks is that they’re temporary, only lasting in the Hive you discover them, and they are also totally random. Maybe I was just suffering from bad RNG in my runs, but often I would get the same Perk twice in one Hive, and usually it would be one I didn’t really need. I wish there was a way you could have spent Goo to unlock permanent, weaker Perks that you could swap out to further improve the experience.
Open that chest for a handy Perk!
Hive Jump Review Consumer Reports
The most terrifying parts of the game aren’t actually the intense boss fights, but instead when the Hive swarms against you. This is often triggered by methodically annihilating Ordovician nests, which stops them from throwing more bugs at you. I often would feel compelled to wipe out any nest in my path, but this can be very dangerous. When a swarm is agitated, things get beyond hectic, as every enemy in the area will come flying at you. It’s a bit frustrating that every foe knows the layout of the procedurally generated map whereas you only discover it as you go. They’ll come at you no matter where you hide, so you either run or wipe them all out until the swarm ends. This is where I learned the disadvantage of your Rifle’s cooldown period. You see, while you do have unlimited ammo with every Rifle, they tend to overheat when you keep firing them. When that happens, you won’t be able to fire a single bullet until they cool down, which only takes seconds, but which feels like an eternity if you’re being attacked. While this was frustrating, I did eventually get better at timing my shots and not overdoing it by jamming down the fire button. Having said that, you’ll often want to do just that when facing a particularly nasty boss.
Speaking of bosses, there are a few in Hive Jump, and they are all dangerous, varied and huge. Generally they take up a large chunk of the screen, and will wail on you with a variety of attacks. If that wasn’t enough, each and every boss can and will summon more grunt Ordovicians to fight you. This was a bit frustrating for me, not because these minor foes were too powerful, but because it could be overwhelming, especially since they would teleport in randomly. While I did enjoy most of the bosses, and felt they all offered a distinct challenge, I could have done without the horde of minor foes. That said, of all the bosses, only a couple felt genuinely frustrating. Overall, they were pleasant reminders of games such as Contra.
I truly hated this boss of the Ice Hives…
The control scheme is well optimized in Hive Jump, despite sounding a bit odd. Primary controls are relegated to shoulder buttons, ZL and ZR for jump and fire respectively, while the L and R buttons control your Grenades and Utility (which also has a cooldown period). The right joystick is used to aim your Rifle. I thought I would dislike this setup, but it really works well, especially since the minimap is proudly displayed on the Gamepad screen. Frankly, seeing the Gamepad used so well here makes me wish other developers, indie and AAA alike, would have made more of an effort to support the Wii U console.
On the visual side of things, I really like the pixel art in Hive Jump. It’s punchy and vibrant, and although there’s not a huge variety of environments, they’re all well drawn. My one complaint with regard to the art is the Ordovicians. Don’t get me wrong, they are all delightfully monstrous, but I wish their color palette was a bit more varied. Most are orange and red, only a few varying the color scheme. That made them mostly look a bit samey, despite differences such as size and other factors like wings. The music is simple and keeps you motivated, and each environment sounds a little different. I was a bit surprised by the music going out a couple times when the action got really frantic, and another time the sound of my Rifle firing was totally mute. Which brings me to my next section, the glitches.
Let me preface this by saying the guys at Graphite Lab are all very friendly and went out of their way to accommodate me. Having said that, I did encounter a number of glitches in my experience that I feel obligated to mention. A couple times the game utterly froze, emitting a loud, shrill tone, forcing me to manually turn off my system by holding the power for 10 seconds. Other times, I fell through the floor in an ice Hive, though luckily the game seemed to anticipate that and warped me back to the starting point. I’m not sure if this last one was an actual glitch or not, but a few times when I was attacked by Ordovicians, my Transponder Backpack went flying, and I had to rush to retrieve it. While I have it on good authority the team is working on fixing these glitches, as of the time of this writing, they are still unresolved.
In total, I spent about four hours playing Hive Jump, with most of that spent in Campaign. I also briefly tried out Arcade on easy, which seemed easier than Campaign at first but then the bosses utterly destroyed me. In fact, a boss I had no problems with in Campaign was suddenly a beast in Arcade. While the game is fun solo, I truly feel it was meant to be played with friends. It’s just too easy to get overwhelmed by the hordes of Ordovicians. So if you don’t have a bunch of friends who can crash and play on your couch, the game is much harder than it needs to be. And regarding the glitches, while not the worst thing, the Wii U version of Hive Jump can’t be its best while they persist. That said, for $14.99, Hive Jump is a fun, if flawed, experience. I’m glad I was finally able to play it on the console I backed it on, and I’m happy that Graphite Lab is making such a concerted effort to make the best game they can. I only hope the Wii U build gets patched soon, so Nintendo fans can enjoy it to the fullest.
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Overall | |
Review Copy Provided by Developer
Hive Jump blends together a mix of randomly generated levels, platforming, shooting, and even base defense to make for a fine action platformer.
There are some fantastic titles that have released over the years that use randomly generated levels such as Dead Cells, The Binding of Isaac, and of course, the classic, Spelunky. The roguelike genre can sometimes be intimidating because many times, you are left within deep areas to explore, and it can leave the player trapped in a deep maze to get out of. However, the great titles in the genre leap beyond just random level design and create something memorable.
Hive Jump is somewhere in between these two. While the game does have some satisfying combat and smooth movement mechanics, it never does anything special to separate itself from the pack.
Hive Jump Review Movie
The story isn’t worth much getting into. It is your typical alien invasion narrative where humanity must make its final stand to survive. There is some dialogue between characters that got me to chuckle a couple times, however, overall, the story wasn’t anything to write home about.
What Hive Jump does do that differs itself from the norm is that there is some light strategic base defense. Before jumping into a new level, you must defend your bases from the hostile alien race. You can use the experience that you have earned in each level to buy more troops for a certain base, reveal information on other bases you will eventually invade, or invest in mega robots for defense. It wasn’t much and not very in-depth, but it was a nice diversion from the randomly generated levels and side-scrolling platforming.
Speaking of the levels and platforming, this is Hive Jump’s bread and butter — at least, it tries to be. Each level kind of just blends together a little too much and can make you feel like you have been walking around in circles for eternity. On top of that, the lack of enemy diversity can also make everything seem a little too familiar too often.
However, the platforming and combat make up for the bland level design. Pro tools 12 full version free download. The movement feels tight and concise. Some weapons pack a satisfying punch. I say some because there certainly are some weapons that can be passed on. The rocket launcher and shotgun almost felt as if they were a waste of my time because of how slow the rate of fire was. On top of that, the damage dealt from these weapons didn’t feel significantly greater to the machine gun. Once I upgraded my machine gun, I was blasting weird alien creatures left and right and spraying fire all willy-nilly, just like the old Contra days.
“While [Hive Jump] does have some satisfying combat and smooth movement mechanics, it never does anything special to separate itself from the pack.”
Each level drops you, or up to 3 other players, at the beginning of the enemy hive. You must fight your way throughout the labyrinth and collect experience that can be used to upgrade your equipment, fortify your bases against alien attacks, or attack alien bases. As you make your way through the alien hive, you will come across weird crawling enemies and some flying enemies that will shoot projectiles. While there really wasn’t a wide assortment of foes, the massive onslaught that can appear always had me engaged with what was going on screen and my finger on the trigger. Would it really be an action platformer without spraying bullets everywhere?
Hive Jump Switch Review
Once deeper into the hive, there are challenge rooms that will reward you a nice bonus for the rest of the level. However, there is only one chance at the bonus. If you happen to die, you are kicked and locked out of the room. These were a nice change of pace and were a little more platforming focused compared to the normal hive. They weren’t anything special, but mixing up the action and platforming certainly doesn’t hurt.
“Would it really be an action platformer without spraying bullets everywhere?”
After traversing through the enemy hive, you will finally come across the boss, which I found to be the standout part of the game. Each boss mixes the action and platforming together very well and created the highlights of my playthrough. Some of them felt very Metroid-like, if that makes sense.
For example, the first boss I defeated wasn’t a gargantuan of an enemy, but instead a slightly large bigger creature that would pace back and forth in the middle of the room. Every now and then it would smash the ground and stalactites would fall from the ceiling, charge me if I got too close, or spawn more enemies to help defend itself. I would juggle these three options while simultaneously jumping over the enemy to shoot at its weak spot on its backside. It was a challenging, yet rewarding boss fight that really stood out.
Hive Jump Review Games
Hive Jump is certainly not the next best roguelike on the market. Many of the levels blend together too much and makes everything feel way too familiar. There is a lack of diverse enemies to change up your playstyle and you will run into the same ones over and over again. Many of the weapons just felt like a waste and I ultimately just used the fully automatic machine gun for most of my playthrough. However, despite these shortcomings, Hive Jump does provide tight platforming, satisfying combat mechanics, and memorable boss fights that will leave most fans of the action shoot ’em up genre satisfied. If this title happens to go on sale and you are looking for a fun and action-packed platformer, I would reccommend Hive Jump.