Jim Power (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
95Jim Power is a side-scrolling platform shooter, developed by a Spanish team, and released by Loriciel in 1992. The game has very nice graphics, music and sounds, and tries to push the boundaries of what was possible. Lets see of this is a winner or maybe an also-ran.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 5th Nov 2019, 9th October 2020
Narrated: 30th April 2021
Edited: 9th Oct 2020, April 2021 to 3rd Nov 2021
I never had Jim Power back in the day, and the first time I tried it in emulation, the screen was flickering like crazy. The game felt ok but not very instantly fun, so it never got played until it featured in the Lemon Vs EAB SuperLeague Competition in February 2019. We played it for the usual three weeks, and I managed to learn all the tricks needed to reach the last level with plenty of lives. I remember I tried to beat the last level at least three of four times. It was difficult to practice because it took so long to get there, but I made it further each time - past the mid-level boss and on the a series of moving platforms at the end. I remember it was nail biting stuff when I did make it to the end of the level, and then I started the screen recorder just as I was about to face the final boss, which is at the very end of this video.
The first time I tried to record this for a guide was 5th November 2019. It didn't go very well, and I only reached the forest level. A year later, on the 9th of October 2020, I tried again. This time I had definitely forgotten most of the safe strategies, and just ran through the game very quickly, leading to a lot of deaths. This was very annoying that I seemed to have lost all of my patience or skill, and I had to use Savestates to make my own checkpoints to make it through the game; which is kind of embarrassing, and makes it look like I can't play it. I also went back to this in April 2021, and recorded bits to try to patch the forest level together using Savestates. This is not like my normal style of presenting these guides, but in this case I was more upset with myself for making endless careless mistakes that I just wanted to get this done so I could edit it and make a guide.
The screenshots of the characters on the box art were mostly taken from posts on the Jim Power competition thread on Lemon Amiga. For the Comparison Zone, I cheated and used footage I found on youtube for the TurboGrafx CD version, as I dont have an emulator for that system. Surprised it came out on the Amstrad, although I found it unplayable.
Danscore:
Shadow of the Beast took the Amiga into the 1990's, and suddenly a host of very lovely looking games started to (finally) appear. Jim Power doesnt stand out much from the box art, and I dont think I ever saw this in shops. Developed by an unknown Spanish team, it was perhaps sold through mail order, and was never seen as an underground hit as far as I know. The controls are sharp but not as perfect as Superfrog or Turrican. The walking and jumping is slow, and rather limited, along with the very linear level design - making this feel a lot more claustrophobic than it's rivals; which had open spaces to explore (Switchblade 2, Mr.Nuts, Kid Chaos etc). This feels like they were pushing for the console quality of technological supremacy, with background features which would make Risky Woods blush. But gameplay wise this isn't quite up there with best of them. The time limit means sometimes you have to rush, and although there are always safe spots to tackle every enemy, it doesnt feel as satisfying to play as a Factor 5 release (including BC Kid), or Toki or plenty of others. The difficulty is also all or nothing, as the game can quickly beat you up with narrow margin of error sometimes. If this played in a more friendly way then it would get 8.5, but as a slightly clunky feeling technical demo I can only give it a 7 out of 10.
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