Mighty Bomb Jack (1986)

Played maybe half hour at normal speed before getting bored and deciding it was not worth playing. The jump mechanics were very interesting, with up and down changing jump height and holding the button causing you to fall so slowly it was pretty much hovering. Down while falling made you fall faster. The other button consumed coins for better ability to open chests, with the ultimate turning enemies into coins. Unfortunately this was the only way to fight and the majority of the game was spent avoiding enemies while collecting bombs and treasure. This lack of combat annoyed me and I ignored many of the pick ups. But collecting too much stuff punished the player by locking them into a torture room with enemies, forcing an extended sequence of perfect dodging to escape. I quit upon my 2nd trip to torture because who thought putting literal jail and torture into a game was a good idea? Jumping around enemies during the normal stages was bad enough. The best part of the game were the bomb collecting rooms where 1 was always lit, giving time incentive to not blow up. Apparently this was the arcade Bomb Jack game. Each such room was like the boss of a stage and there were side paths, alternate routes, warps and even back warps. With no in game made it was giving that Metroid 1 feel, with special treasure objectives needed for the good ending. I would definitely need a map, walkthrough and taking careful pain not to get thrown into torture in order to tolerate beating this, but I did not enjoy the core gameplay enough to bother with all that. Despite the great jumping mechanics, all you really did was avoid enemies and collect stuff. The only hazard I seen was fire that was easy to float over.

Tough to rate. It had some good and even great aspects, but others that were meh or outright bad, and I didn't experience most of it. Somewhere between 4 and 5.8 / 10.