Retro Review - Jet Force Gemini

I never had a Nintendo 64 and the few times I could play with it was that a friend had one, but it had very few games, so I do not know 99% of the N64 catalog, however, thanks to emulators I have been able to play over the years, several games of this legendary video game console (although I still have to know many more). These days I discovered a game that I am sure that like me, many people do not know it and it is really a pretty good game which was overshadowed by others, one of those many underrated games that are worth playing. And even more, being a game from the mythical Rare, creator of Donkey Kong Country.

Today's Retro Review is about: Jet Force Gemini.

Jet Force Gemini is a game with a simple story, since the central axis is based solely on the gameplay. The game introduces us to Juno and Vela, two brothers who belong to the special intergalactic defense group "Jet Force Gemini" (as is the name of the game). In one of their expeditions while these two brothers and their faithful pet Lupus, were sailing in space, they are warned that the forces of the army of Mizar (the villain of this game), is attacking the planet Goldwood, so our heroes head to the planet to save its inhabitants, but they are quickly attacked and forced to separate, so that now we must regroup and at the same time, defeat the army of Mizar to save the people of the planet. A simple story, but with great moments of action and fun, being a game developed by Rare, all these aspects are assured.

Graphically Jet Force Gemini is a pretty outstanding game by N64 standards, arguably one of the best games in terms of graphic quality of this console. With a very well implemented color palette in both scenery and characters, which have extremely bright and colorful designs, in addition to having relatively large sizes. It is quite satisfying to explore every place in this game, Rare did a spectacular job when creating the scenarios, each one of them with elements and details that make them unique. They have great variety and of scenarios with very well implemented textures (taking into account the time and the capacity of the N64), they are also quite wide scenarios, although of course, due to that "large" size, the developers chose to use the typical "fog", which has already been seen in the first Silent Hill, to hide certain imperfections and so that the field of view is not hindered by the "Popping", although in Jet Force Gemini is not so evident.

The character designs are also very original, especially the main characters, but also the enemies and certain NPCs, although some have "simple" designs, are very charismatic in themselves, the modeling is very well done, plus the animations are fluid and varied enough so that you can enjoy playing it. It also has certain elements such as particles, lights and some visual effects that make this game even better in this aspect. As for the graphical aspect, Jet Force Gemini is a pretty solid game, in which there will be very few moments or places where the graphical aspect of the game will have a drop in quality.

The soundtrack of Jet Force Gemini is equally spectacular, but that is no surprise, considering that this game was made by Rare, so it was more than assured that this game was going to have melodies of the highest quality. Just the intro music of the game gives us that feeling of "space game" or "adventure game", there are also melodies are environmental effects that fit very well with certain scenarios, plus, logically each scenario has its own custom soundtrack to fit very well with the elements and the type of scenario. The sound effects are also outstanding, from the smallest sound effect to the most representative one, such as the sound effect of a laser weapon, sound very good in this game. It is not for nothing that Jet Force Gemini is considered a hidden gem of video games.

Jet Force Gemini is basically a third-person shooter game, but it also has other video game genres such as: platforms, adventures, exploration and action. All these elements and genres are very well mixed in this game, which is 100% fun. It could be said that in terms of difficulty is a bit high, Jet Force Gemini is constantly imposing challenges of different types, but it will also give us great moments of fun. Shooting enemies is quite satisfying due to the easy control of our characters, we can control the 3: Juno, Vela and Lupus, each of them having different characteristics and mechanics that will allow us to overcome certain obstacles or obtain a certain object depending on the character we are controlling.

Jet Force Gemini is quite varied in terms of gameplay and mechanics, and there will even be times when we will be immersed in a pretty fun race. And in a way there is "backtracking", since in some scenarios only a character in question, using their characteristic skills, can obtain certain objects, so we must return to some scenarios to complete and explore it with that character. Exploration is very important in this game, in the scenario there are many items that will help us that are hidden or simply something that is hidden and help us to advance to the next stage.

There are many weapons to use so the action is guaranteed, and it is quite fun to shoot and fight against many enemies. The 3 characters have different abilities that are very useful in certain moments of the story and because of those abilities they are the only ones that can perform that action. For example: Juno, thanks to her special armor is able to dive into lava. Vela can dive underwater without any kind of drowning damage, even the pet, Lupus, using his thrusters can fly for a few moments, being very useful to reach certain specific places.

Overall, Jet Force Gemini is a magnificent game, which has been forgotten over the years and deserves much more recognition as it is a very entertaining and outstanding title in many of its aspects. It is well worth playing.