Jash

Review

I enjoy playing SHMUP games as they are usually quite hectic to get through the levels, and most have interesting boss fights. Some are very frustrating, usually due to control issues and a lack of balance. It has been a while since I have played one of these games, and when I received a Steam key for Jash, it tickled my fancy and I decided to give it a go!

Jash is an arcade shoot’em up game developed and self-published by ChokdeeGame on the 24^th of February, 2023, on the Steam platform.

The game consists of a Story mode and a Survival mode. The Story mode has several levels, five boss fights, and a survival mode. At the time of writing this review, I have successfully beaten four of the bosses.  However, I am struggling to pass the level where you have to follow the villain's vessel through a set of vertical and horizontal segments; the second segment is at high speed and you have to avoid projectiles from turrets as well as horizontal and vertical structures. It’s a tough level, for sure.

Until then, I was doing well and am very pleased with what I experienced. The controls are good, but what impressed me most is the variety of levels, settings and opponents. You start in space, then the next level you’re in medieval Japan, then back to space and then somewhere in medieval Europe. Most levels are horizontal in the Story mode, with a couple of top-down shooter levels thrown in, where you control a character shooting at incoming robots while searching for a key to open the next door.  I liked that, and a bit of change is always welcome.

The level's length is average except for the top-down shooters, which are slightly longer to go through. As the game is a bit challenging on the normal level of difficulty, there are two autosaves per level, which are welcome. If you die, you’ll restart from the last autosave, which actually means restarting a new game. In each new game, you’ll have seven lives to spare whether you play on the normal or hard difficulty level.  It will take you some time to clear a level, and you’ll be happy to restart a level from where you died the last time. After a while, you’ll figure out how the sequences of the enemy attack waves occur and how to place your vessel to counter and destroy them. The boss fights are pretty cool and quite difficult too. I particularly liked the Dragon fight; it was fun and took me quite a while to beat.

In terms of your weaponry, your vessel can shoot a single projectile at first until you acquire the force weapon, which is usually quick and easy to acquire; you just have to shoot the floating blue capsule to acquire it. Then you can choose if you want this new equipment to be at your vessel's front or back. It’s important to know that the white glowing ball on the equipment is an effective shield when a projectile hits straight on it, but it would not shield the rest of the vessel structure. You can also propel the equipment toward enemies, which can be helpful at some stage, but your vessel will lose its shield until you reattach it. You also have two powerups: the beam and the hyper weapons. These powerups need to be charged before using them, and you have to wait for them to cool down before reusing them. Personally, I prefer the hyper over the beam as it shoots a wave of medium projectiles instead of one big one.

The Survival mode is very different as it is presented as a top-down vertical arcade game, like 1943, but your plane is modern jet instead of a second world war plane. It's fun and super hectic. I swapped to Survival mode a few times when I was stuck on a level, just to refresh myself before returning to the Story mode.

The developer also included a detailed tutorial you can access anytime. The graphics are good, and the game runs well. I like that we have variety and surprises in some levels, and the boss fights are challenging but fair. I need to go to Specsavers, get a new pair of glasses, and pass that final level!

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

Jash Steam Store Page