Hive Jump Two-Player Playthrough (Wii U) - Part 1
18This is part 1 of my capture of me and a friend playing through Hive Jump for the Wii U. This is a downloadable title from Graphite Lab. I'm player one (blue character) and Peter is player two (red character). We're completing the beginner campaign.
Even though the Switch has been out for several months now, there was still one more Wii U game that I wanted to get. This is probably the last new Wii U release that I will be getting (not that there are many choices at this point).
When Hive Jump was shown off for the Wii U about a year or two ago, I thought the game looked interesting, but I wasn't quite sure if I would want to buy it. However, after I downloaded some other multiplayer games for the Wii U such as Dual Core, Ghost Blade HD and Sky Force Anniversary, I decided it would be fun to have yet another multiplayer game to complete with friends.
Hive Jump is like a cross between Metroid and Contra with some four-player action thrown in for good measure. The point of the game is to progress through various procedurally generated areas while defeating a boss at the end. As you jump into each stage, you carry a backpack with a set amount of health which allows you to respawn infinitely, so long as the backpack doesn't get destroyed. You also collect goo from the enemy bugs which can be used to purchase upgrades. The purple goo in particular heals you as well.
Also, in between the side-scrolling areas, some RTS elements come into play. Before jumping into an area from the overworld map, you have the option to defend the bases you've established by reinforcing them with additional troops or instituting some other defensive measure.
This game uses a dual analog control scheme, which is jarring at first. However, after a while I got used to the setup, and I found that it worked well in allowing me to freely aim while moving. Hive Jump is fun overall, but there are some major bugs to note (pun intended).
Unfortunately, this game froze on Peter and me about 4 or 5 times during this playthrough. Every time this occurred, we had to start the same area over from scratch, but the game at least saved our purchased upgrades. That's why the playthrough may appear disjointed at times - I simply spliced together our footage of successfully completed areas where the game didn't freeze. The freezing only seemed to occur when we opened one of the large chests, generally in the bonus areas, so we think it's possible to avoid freezing the game by simply avoiding the large chests.
We also fell through walls and floors a few times. You'll see that occur during this playthrough. In particular, when we fell through the floors (not walls), our controls got temporarily reversed, causing us to walk right when he held left and vice versa. This was quite odd, to say the least.
Lastly, the game has performance issues, as you'll see. The frame rate stutters quite a bit, and that can mess you up at times. Unless the developer can patch these issues on the Wii U, I recommend that people simply wait for a possible Switch release.
Notwithstanding these Wii U-related problems, Peter did enjoy having a map on his GamePad screen, so he acted as our navigator during this playthrough. Enjoy!
Recorded with the Elgato Game Capture HD60 and the Wii U's HDMI cable at native 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. I'm using a Classic Controller Pro and Peter is using the GamePad.