JETT: The Far Shore Review: Ambition’s Ebbs & Flows

JETT: The Far Shore from the offset is building towards the continuation of a people. The game tells the achievements, and the downfalls of their story from across the universe. Developer Superbrothers set the stage wonderfully with the promise of uncovering these stories across a vast universe, but unfortunately, a disjointed narrative and frustrating gameplay hinders the overall experience.

Story (Spoiler-Free)

JETT is an 11-12 hour game told through five chapters varying in length. The actual story is quite short, so to tell a truncated spoiler-free version of it will be even shorter.

JETT opens on your home planet, you’re one of the chosen scouts to board a ship that’s to travel the stars in search for the hymnwave, and a supposed new haven for your people’s future. In these opening moments through visual storytelling, you see a world that’s in the late hours of climate change, and this ship is its arc for the future. Upon reaching there after a 1,000 year travel, you touchdown on the planet and begin its survey. Setting a ground control base station, working your way up to visiting the gigantic mountain TOR. I can’t say much about what happens after that moment without spoiling most of the story the game has to offer, but I’ll say that what follows is both standard, and at times disjointed sci-fi storytelling.

Even though the narrative was nothing groundbreaking, I enjoyed it and the characters it holds. Unfortunately though, the game just ends. This isn’t the beginning and end of a story; it’s a chapter. While I would have been fine with that, the game has a crescendo of a last chapter, introducing game mechanics and gameplay events not seen throughout the rest of the game. It falsely leads you down a path of expectations, and then ends.

Presentation

Both on an auditory level and visually, JETT’s presentation is where the game truly shines. From vast and gorgeous vistas, both serene and hostile, to it’s hauntingly beautiful score by SCNTFC.

Opening up on their native planet, seeing the true effects of a society wrought by climate change, contrasted by a planet supposedly untouched by the hands of a species that destroys and builds rather than cohabitates. JETT’s visuals are a lovely mix of painterly paired with realism.

The score is a completely different beast altogether. Grand brass to sweeping hums and tones, this has the true DNA of a space opera score. When the visuals and the score meet is when JETT is at its best. Culminating in a deeply emotional moment and creating a true sense of foreboding and wonderment. SCNTFC once again proves to be a force to be reckoned with across the gaming composition scene.

Gameplay

Unfortunately the same cannot be said about how JETT plays; at times it's frustrating, and others truly infuriating.

The game is mission based within chapters (five to be exact including the opening segment), and within those you’re given directives that move the game and story along; except when it doesn’t. Before you begin one of the chapters in the game, you’re told approximately how long to set aside in real-life to play said chapter, and for the most part this is accurate. When it works, the game will tell you what you should be looking for, and how to accomplish that. However on more than one occasion, you’re not told what to do.

This would be fine if it wasn’t such a stark contrast to how the game handles tutorials in other spots. It will literally stop and tell you what to do at times, and in others, it won’t tell you at all. A prime example occurs during a part in which you’re told to seek shelter and roam. That’s all the directive tells you to do; no hint as to how to execute the directive or where to go. After roaming for a while and taking shelter twice, I got aggravated. At this point the directive didn’t change, which led me to scour the world’s map. This led me to thinking I had to literally bump into what the next objective was before seeing what it could be. It wasn’t until I arrived back where this directive had started that it finally updated.

Why did the game purposefully lead me on a goose chase here, when in others it tells me exactly what to do. Without spoiling too much, there are two new game mechanics introduced in the final hours of the game. These mechanics are forcefully told to you. There isn’t any mystery or choice around it, the game will stop and tell you. I just wish this design choice wasn’t piecemeal. Either go all in or not at all with how you decide to hold my hand through an experience.

The problems I had with the gameplay didn’t start or end there unfortunately. The core gameplay loop and mechanic has you controlling the titular ship (JETT). This mechanic is quite the pain most of the time. In its opening moments, the JETT feels fun and fluid as you’re racing over water with little to no obstacles in your way. It’s a joy to control. The rest of the game, however, is filled with jagged and uneven land masses for you to hover over. Depending on where you are, motion requires minimal effort or feels like balancing a marble atop another marble. It’s unbalanced.

Due to locomotion and the inhabitants of the world, the JETT’s speed and power is another point of aggravation at times. You’re either hitting the throttle and going at travel speed, or your main engine is turned off and you feel like a cricket moving in molasses. This all wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t a problem with how often the game throws threats at you. From flora and fauna just minding their own business and easy enough to avoid, to aggressive fauna coming after you by force, all the way to even a nearby sun’s harmful rays that you have to avoid. The way in which JETT handles power and speed in the light of threats is another cause of frustration. 

Even reading dialog and deciphering the narrative is hard to achieve. The narrative is told in a fictional language and exclusively subtitled, with most dialog occurring during gameplay moments such as flying or avoiding threats. The dialog appears near the bottom of the screen like most subtitles and is very easy to miss during the gameplay. To say playing the game was a struggle would be putting it lightly.

Breakdown

Game: JETT: The Far Shore

Developer: Superbrothers + Pine Scented with SCNTFC

Availability: PS4, PS5 & PC

Reviewed on PlayStation 5

Pros:

+ Near-masterpiece score

+ Beautiful landscape vistas

Cons:

- Controls fight you

- Occasional hitching and chugging

- Doesn’t have a good balance of ‘show and tell’ objectives

- Ends abruptly after a crescendo

Final Thoughts

JETT feels like an identity crisis. Contrast is one thing from having calm, serene moments, to hectic and dangerous with the next. But with how the game holds your hand in most of its moments and then flat out ditches you in others, it feels like there were multiple directions. Rather than coming to a consensus, the game is pulled in different paths.

It's easy to experience JETT and think it may have been in the oven for too long. Superbrothers’ first game released on the iPad back in 2011. Sword & Sworcery was a lush, 2D pixel experience; one I actually sought after an iPad to play. JETT is as far removed from that as we are from 2011, and felt over-ambitious as a result of that.

Ambition is a powerful thing. It can drive you to achieve new heights, and soar above what is thought possible. It can also make you lose sight of what’s important. JETT is a beautiful game from its environments to its score, along with its melancholy tale. Only the game part of JETT feels at complete odds with every one of those positives. When it works, it's a hauntingly beautiful space opera. Far too often though, the game gets in its own way with too many threats and gameplay issues. If ever a game needed a “Give Me a Story” difficulty option, it’s JETT: The Far Shore.

Reviewed by Matthew Wright