13 Points on Jamestown: Legend Of The Lost Colony - Final Form Games - 2011 [PC]

1. They've been making vertical scrolling shmups since the beginning of the history--or at least the part of history I actually care about. Jamestown digs deep in that long tradition and provides a familiar rush for fans of the genre in an off-the-wall setting w/ enough new ideas to keep it interesting.

2. I don't think the term existed but Jamestown is done in what's now called hi-bit pixel art. It's crisp art pays homage to the 16-bit games of the nineties w/o letting itself get tied down by technical limitations. The style fits the classic gameplay and it looks great. There's a couple options if you want a pixel perfect reproduction or want the image to fit your screen. I've got no complaints.

3. The story here is fantastical. It re-imagines the colonization of the Americas as happening on Mars. It's completely bezerk and stops making sense if you drink beers while you play. Your role in this saga is to shoot a hell of a lot of stuff.

4. Jamestown's wonderful orchestral soundtrack deserves special notice. It is consistent enough in timbre to hold everything together but varied enough to remain exciting throughout. It's peaceful when appropriate and loud when the action gets pounding. Despite a more modern sound to it, it fits in perfectly w/ the classic pew-pew-pew shmup sound effects.

5. The mechanic that is unique to Jamestown is called vaunt. It replaces the screen clearing bombs common in classic shooters. It briefly flashes a shield around your ship and can be used to get you out of sticky situations. The nifty thing about it is that rather than getting a set number of chances to use vaunt, you get it by charging up a meter from collecting enemy drops. Immediately after using it, you start getting a chain score multiplier which keeps going as long as you can continue to collect enough enemy drops. You can also get one last flash of shield that will end your chain if you need it. This vaunt mechanic adds a striking amount of depth once you start chasing high scores. If you are struggling w/ a level, you can save it up for the toughest parts. If you use it early, you can try to keep it going to get that chain multiplier as high as possible but you lose your one emergency defensive tactic.

6. You cannot beat Jamestown on normal difficulty which is the lowest setting in the game. You can play the first level on normal difficulty and the second but to unlock the third, you need to beat the first two on the next highest difficulty level. This pattern repeats throughout the game. This annoyed me at first but I ultimately felt like it was a savvy design choice. It forces you to ease yourself into the higher difficulty modes and doesn't let you coast through w/o challenging yourself.

7. Rather than just throw all the levels at you in order, Jamestown walls each one off as a discrete entity. After beating one, you are dumped to the level select screen and then get all your lives and continues for whatever level you should chose to play next. There is also what they call gauntlet mode which lets you play through all the stages in order like an ordinary shooter if you think you're good enough.

8. Let's be realistic here: you are probably not good enough. Jamestown is an unforgiving game. There are no powerups aside from the enemy drops that give you vaunt. There are no extra lives. You get three credits w/ three lives a piece and it is hard to get through even one level w/ this many chances let alone the whole game.

9. Win or lose, you will collect an amount of the in-game currency, ducats, w/ which to unlock bonus content. The bonus levels are quite a different challenge than the main game--even more bullet-hellish--and are quite fun in their own right. I probably would like game nearly so much as I liked Jamestown if it were just these levels but they are a worthwhile bonus.

10.You also unlock three new ships, all of which are kind of awesome in their own various ways. Each has not only a different main attack but a different special attack as well. They are all completely usable on every level but some feel suited more to some levels than others.

11. This is one of those games where the final boss is quite a bit more difficult than the rest of the game. I am undecided if this is a good thing generally. I kept coming back until I beat this one so I suppose it is good in this one case.

12. There are only five levels but even w/o bonus stages, these well-groomed challenges provide a longer, more enjoyable experience than a greater number of levels built to a lesser standard would. You can, first of all, play at the ridiculously hard level unlocked by completing your first playthrough. Since each of the bonus ships plays so differently, it is fun to go through w/ each of them as well. Then, of course, you can work to press your high score as far as possible.

13. Jamestown, from start to finish, strikes me as something of a labor of love. There is a personal touch to it that makes it feel really special even though it mostly sticks w/ established genre tropes. Where it does diverge from standard mechanics, it does so thoughtfully and in such a way that  creates meaningful new elements without them feeling gimmicky or foreign. Beyond that, it is simply a good, challenging game that looks and sounds great, controls well and is fun to play. Do you like games like this? You do like games like this. Play Jamestown.