Jett Rocket



Jett Rocket is a WiiWare game made by Shin'en Multimedia, released in 2010. It is a 3D Platformer--notable for, in fact, being just about the only 3D platformer for WiiWare. It's also notable for its incredibly shiny graphics, which have a level of polish and detail some believed impossible for a downloadable Wii game.

The game itself is named for the main character, Jett Rocket, a "Planetary Inspector." A gang of interstellar pirates known as the Power Plant Posse have descended upon the lovely planet of Yoroppa in order to steal its energy. Jett Rocket is called in to put a stop to their plans! He must dismantle their machines and return Yoroppa to its peaceful state. Like all good platformer heroes, he must do this by traveling across Yoroppa's Atoll, Northpole, and Jungle, through 12 levels, retrieving the solar cells that fell from his craft along the way. In addition to jumping, he can fly with a jetpack, as well as a variety of different moves by making use of different items--like riding a jet ski, floating on a parachute, hitching a ride on a magnetic zipline...

Technologically, the fact that it looks like it does--and is in the genre it is--with just 40 megabytes of data to its name is quite the feat. Even more so considering its relatively short development period. To make up for its short length, it also blatantly sequel baits--so there's sure to be plenty of Jett in the future.


 * A Winner Is You: After beating the final boss, you basically just get a "Hey, thanks for saving the world!" message; roll credits. Still, there is that Sequel Hook...
 * Background Boss: Herzog Aisu, the second boss. It's actually an interesting bit of player psych-out: One of its attacks is a pair of lasers that can cross; since you're on a narrow platform, it tends to make the player think only of moving left and right to avoid them. However, using that extra bit of third-dimension is crucial to avoiding the lasers.
 * Back Tracking: Unless you're careful enough to pick up nearly every solar cell, you'll eventually have to do this to unlock the final third of the game.
 * Bilingual Bonus: The boss' names are all made from the combination of a German noble title + a Japanese noun. Roughly, in order, they are: Emperor of the Ocean, Duke of Ice, and King of the Swamp.
 * Bubblegloop Swamp: The "Jungle" level has aspects of this, crossed with Jungle Japes.
 * Camera Centering
 * Chasing Your Tail: The final boss.
 * Dungeon Bypass: One award tasks you with completing an Atoll level... in 20 seconds. The only way to do this without bizarre glitching and/or hacking?
 * Exposition Fairy: The helpful Chefo droids scattered around the levels, which tell you where to go.
 * Follow The Solar Cells
 * Free Rotating Camera
 * Genius Programming: The amount of stuff the developers managed to pack into 44 MB of data is remarkable; Shin'en has actually built a reputation for themselves when it comes to neat little hardware tricks. (Previously, they gained renown for their GBA/DS sound skills, designed to get as much oomph as possible out of the handhelds.)
 * Gimmick Level: Jett Ride, which is a jet ski minigame.
 * Gratuitous German: OK, it's not wholly gratuitous, since the devs are, in fact, Germans. But the bosses are all named after German nobility.
 * Gratuitous Japanese: ...And the second halves of their names draw from Japanese.
 * Green Aesop: Rather mild, but the PPP basically do just exist to pollute and use resources.
 * Grimy Water: The Jungle is full of it.
 * Ground Pound: One of Jett's main forms of attack.
 * Hard Levels Easy Bosses: The game as a whole is not especially difficult, but some of the levels can be surprisingly tough, especially if you're meticulous about getting the solar cells. The bosses, however, are fairly predictable and all go down in just three hits. Oh well.
 * Hub Level: Jett's ship is a tiny one.
 * 100% Completion: Measured in terms both of how many collectables you've gotten and how many awards you've unlocked.
 * ~It's Easy, So It Sucks~: This was the reaction some review outlets had to the game, with a bit of Hype Backlash mixed in. On the other hand, some review outlets praised it for its easiness, since that let the players soak in the very pretty ride at their own pace.
 * Jet Pack
 * Jungle Japes
 * Meaningful Name:
 * No OSHA Compliance: The Power Plant Posse are this trope personified. They build lots of large, dangerous structures basically just to suck up energy.
 * Palmtree Panic: The Atoll, with a bit of Green Hill Zone thrown in for soothing measure.
 * Recurring Boss:
 * Sapient Cetaceans: Rudolpho, an old friend of Jett's, is a be-helmeted space dolphin. But he's cool.
 * Scenery Porn: Oh, so much of it.
 * The official production blog actually goes into quite a bit of detail about how the game's graphics engine works, and what rendering tricks they used for maximum scenery pornitude.
 * Which means these people got more out of the Wii than most third party retail releases.
 * Sequel Hook: Blatant as it gets, with the game telling you outright in the credits to look forward to Jett Rocket 2. Which may even be a full-sized retail release.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Northpole (one word) level; especially the Glacier sublevel, which has lots of actually slippy slidey ice.
 * Suspicious Videogame Generosity: The game plays very sparse with extra hearts... unless it's right before a boss, in which case, it likes to give you a full top-up.
 * Theme Naming: Helpful/neutral robots and items tend to have names ending in "-o" that relate to their function: Porto the portal, Movo the moving platform, Propello the propeller-bot...
 * Video Game Achievements: Called Awards here. Some of them are easy to get (such as "Find a secret heart," or "get rid of all the enemies in a level"), some are not (Finish an Atoll level... in 20 seconds), and some are deceptively difficult (such as "Don't collect any solar cells in a level.")
 * Video Game Flight: Jett's jetpack lets him hover for quite a ways, but it burns up fuel like nobody's business.