Jim Power: The Lost Dimension Collection Review

Jim Power: The Lost Dimension tells the adventures of the titular character, Jim Power, who needs to save the planet from the supernatural alien, Vaprak. However, given Vaprak’s extraterrestrial forces, Power will not be able to go head-on with the supervillain, so he’ll need to sneak past his defenses. Reach Vaprak’s castle and send him to hell.

Jim Power: The Lost Dimension Collection is a bundle of two 2D shooter/platformers: one 8-bit version and one 16-bit version. Both games feature Jim going from start to end of each level killing enemies, dodging obstacles, and going head-to-head with a boss at the end. So nothing new here.

Akin to the Contra/Probotector series, our superhero can find and pick up a handful of diverse power-ups to increase your firepower. It’s a neat feature, but the damage increase is minimal compared to the base weapon. When playing the 8-bit version, if you get hit, you lose the power-up, but not in the 16-bit version. Boss battles are pretty fun, albeit nothing spectacular.

By now seeing Qubyte Interactive and PIKO attached to a game, you can expect fun-killing nuisances, and Jim Power: The Lost Dimension Collection is no different. In both games, you can’t run and shoot at the same time. As far as the 8-bit version goes, even on Easy, you only get one life. Health runs out and it’s back to square one. It also controls like you’re walking and jumping with boots made out of cement and makes platforming and boss fighting clunky.

But the 16-bit version is the one that suffers the most. The jumping is delayed and if you don’t release the jump button fast enough, you’ll perform another jump; if you’re not paying attention, this can prove costly. As with the 8-bit version, you can’t walk and shoot. It also doesn’t have a health bar, so you can never really know when you’re close to death unless you keep tabs on the number of times you get hit.

Both games actually look great in their 8-bit and 16-bit glory! The former one does have that NES style flair whereas the latter has more of a Genesis/MegaDrive inspired styling as opposed to a Super NES-like game. The 16-bit visuals are a bit muddy at times in the sense that it’s difficult to tell what’s a platform. Both games also have a few collision issues; from both extremes. Sometimes an enemy will go through you without damage (occurs mostly in the 8-bit version) whereas sometimes there’s a clear gap between Jim and an enemy but the protagonist still suffers damage. Both soundtracks are also surprisingly good, albeit the 16-bit version does have that metallic-like clank that’s familiar to Genesis/MegaDrive players.

Unfortunately, Qubyte and PIKO continue to disappoint. The core gameplay is decent and this could’ve easily been a decent Contra/Probotector clone, but there are so many things wrong. Delayed jumping in the 16-bit version, not being able to move and shoot at the same time. Both games are pretty mediocre, but the 8-bit version, despite movement feeling heavy, is the superior version here, but you only get one life. A bit of proper QA and playtesting could have made this game a great indie standout. Buy at your own risk.