Bringing back a classic game with a massive upgrade to meet the game industry’s current standard is Graphite Lab and Atari with their latest game Mr. Run And Jump. This title was originally launched for the Atari 2600 in the earlier days of home console gaming, and now they have improved the game both aesthetically and in its gameplay content. It was one of the earliest challenging platformers, so does this new edition hold up to today’s standards?

Gameplay

With respect to their retro beginnings, the earliest stages of the tutorial are in the classic Atari 2600 format. Seeing how you need to first learn the controls that were available back in the day before getting into the updated gameplay control options, it was a happy surprise to experience. Speaking of the controls, you have the full set expected in the challenging platformers of today. You have your jump, double jump, air dash, wall jump, ball rolling, launch jumping, and super jumps to work with.

As the levels progress, the challenge featured in each game gets increasingly more difficult. In your first section, you will find the levels to be a little challenging, but not terribly so. By the second section, you will see the challenge increase but in a more selective way. It isn’t until the fourth or fifth section of the game that the difficulty directly affects whether players can beat the level itself or not.

To clarify further, as you progress through levels you will find two things to collect: blue gems and red spheres. The best part of the collectibles is that they serve a purpose in this game. Gathering all of the collectibles can earn you four spheres per level. You need to gather a certain number of spheres to unlock a level in the last area of the game. The final section of the game doesn’t get reached linearly but rather unlocks level-by-level as the necessary spheres are collected.

Blue gems can be found throughout the entire level and present their own form of challenge to be collected. Collecting blue gems is where the difficulty gets intense for in the second section as challenging parkour moments will be needed to reach them and return. Whatever blue gems you’ve collected saves as you change screens, so if there is a challenging part at the start of an area, it is beneficial to gather them, return to the last scene, and then go back to the current scene just so you can consider them collected. Keep in mind, if you complete the level and miss even one blue gem, you will have to gather them all in your next attempt - it does not save collection progress, but it does save the record of the most gems collected in each particular completed level. Collecting all blue gems in a level will reward you with a blue sphere.

Red spheres are a bit different though. Every level has three red spheres to collect, each of which are hidden behind a challenge room that has to be found in the level. Once you find a challenge room, it will present its own challenge to collect the sphere and get back out alive. These rooms never hold any blue gems, so entering them is specifically to collect these red spheres.

With all the details known, it is worth noting that this game offers some very interesting parkour challenges. Ranging from free-movement styles to blue gem guided styles, the different skills this game will require to be fully completed are something that will be impressive to watch, let alone pull off yourself.

Audio and Visuals

Starting off in the retro-style world of the pale blue background and white character before moving into the neon-saturated bright world that the rest of the game takes place in really shows the contrast of this game’s past and how far the graphical quality has come. Even with them maintaining their classic art style, they managed to pull off an amazingly intricate set of levels that feature all their returning enemies, challenges, and some new elements to the game. It really is interesting to look at and manages to show off how far we’ve come in a way that is both subtle and thrown at the player.

The same could be said about the sound work in this game. The retro beginning of the game shows a lack of background music and old, out-of-date, and even slightly annoying sound effects. Then we move into the bright, new style featuring their own theme music, effective and non-distractive background music, and sound effects that are fitting without being obnoxious. Once again, just another element that shows how far we have come in this industry.

Replayability

Thanks to how challenging it is to get all the spheres, which intrinsically provides the goal to unlock all of the final levels, there is plenty of replayability. While it is fun to go through the levels and just be happy to have completed them, it is another level of accomplishment to pull off a 100% completion in the more challenging levels. Along with this, levels can be replayed after being beaten and there is a clock at the start of the level which, when collected, will start a timer to keep track of how quickly you can complete the level. The time trial aspect alone is sure to be the speedrunner communities golden tool for this game.

What It Could Have Done Better

While I can tell they just expected that players will be replaying levels, it would have been nice to have a proper tutorial level that went over all the different abilities your character has to work with. You have to get most of the way through the first section of the game to be able to learn all the different tricks you can pull off in the game.

Verdict

Mr. Run and Jump is a highly entertaining yet very challenging platformer! I have to say that I was very happy with how this game turned out to be designed and really enjoyed my initial playthrough of the game. While I still have many challenges to complete in this game, the levels are fun to beat on their own and the difficulty behind collecting all the spheres is fun-strating to pull off. If you like platformers and don’t mind a bit of a challenge, then this is an easy one to recommend picking up.

Mr. Run and Jump is set to launch tomorrow, July 25th, for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and AtariVCS.