Jack N’ Jill DX review for PS Vita

Just looking at screenshots from Jack N’ Jill DX, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the game is arriving on the Vita (and pretty much every other platform) years after it was originally released. What may surprise you, though, is its age: it may look like something that could have come out on the Game Boy, but it’s actually a little newer than that, having first been released as a mobile game 5 years ago.

Spiritually, though, its roots lie in the dawn of handheld gaming. Jack N’ Jill DX looks a lot like some of the games that graced the Game Boy, with graphics and characters that look not too far removed from, say, Kirby’s Dreamland. The gameplay, too, is pretty rudimentary, with one button being all you need to navigate Jack (or Jill, depending on your preference) from the start to finish of every level.

That’s not to say it never gets difficult — though not all of the challenge is intentional on the part of the developers. While they clearly meant to put spikes and enemies scattered throughout every level, I’m assuming they didn’t intend for the hit detection to be so wonky. There are times when my character died just for landing in the general vicinity of a spike, and there are times when I killed floating baddies just by hopping somewhere near them; neither felt quite right.

I’ll also add that even if the quality of Jack N’ Jill DX’s content is occasionally slightly wonky, there’s undeniably a lot of it: there are 140 levels here, plus another half dozen or so bonus minigames, which means that your interest in the game will likely wane well before you run out of stuff to do.

And, as a sidenote, I’ll add that this game features probably the easiest Platinum trophy you could ever imagine. You can easily obtain one in under 15 minutes — the time it takes to beat the first world, plus one minigame — even though beating the whole game will take you significantly longer than that..

As was the case with Tetra’s Escape, I leave that up to you to decide how much you want an easy Platinum. If, however, you’re just looking for a solid — if short — platformer, then you’ve come to the right place, because Jack N’ Jill DX delivers on that modest promise.

Ratalaika Games provided us with a Jack N’ Jill DX PS4/Vita code for review purposes.