Just think for a moment and try to imagine a land full of colors, energy, and royalty. What do you think you would do there? Would you try and visit with anyone you could or do you think you would be the shy type? What if you were the prince or princess of the land, would you invite everyone you could to your castle or keep everything as secret as could be? What if there was a book about your adventures, what would be on the inside and how would you want the story to go? Imagination can be a lot of fun as it can allow us to be anything and live anywhere we want, for as short or as long as we want when we think about it. But does developer JollyCo, bring the fun and variety of an adventure? Let’s find out with Sugar Mess – Let’s Play Jolly Battle for the Quest 3.
Sugar Mess – Let’s Play Jolly Battle is a fun arcade first-person shooter for the whole family! Embark on a journey through the amazing levels of the Sugar Kingdom! Fend off the attacks of hilarious yummy enemies that shatter into pieces on impact! Make use of your vast arsenal of weapons that get stronger as you use them. Use special items to gain an advantage over your opponents. Challenge mighty bosses, and use their weak spots to defeat them.
But before you embark on an adventure through the Sugar Kingdom, there are are few things that you should be aware of. First, make sure you have some space. Things can get a little crazy with those yummy enemies coming at you. Second, make sure your headset and Touch controllers are charged. You don’t want those yummy delicious enemies attacking you with no way of defending yourself because you forgot to charge, now do you? Third, I am not going to spoil anything for anyone. And finally, have some fun in Sugar Kingdom. With all that said, let’s continue…
If you have seen the trailer, you will notice a lot of things going on and honestly, I was intrigued by it all. You are presented with the tutorial where it all starts as you appear in the attic with a chest and a key, where you are told to grab the key so you can unlock the chest. Inside, you have a watch that you will need to put on your hand. This is more so you can see what your health points and damage is at any time. Just like any other type of health you may have experienced, the health points drop when you take damage. But then, you are presented with a weapon that looks like it was created out of a science lab and even has stickers on it, which is pretty awesome. Reloading your weapon is pretty simple. To your left, you will just need to grab the ammo and put it into the weapon. Pull the trigger to shoot the enemies.
Throughout the different levels, you have the opportunity to grab health Boosters to regain your health and rocket Boosters to help clear out enemies. But even if you don’t use the health or rocket boosters right away and gain more, they will just add to how many of those boosters you have. So it’s possible to use multiple rocket boosters in a row, for example. After each level, you can coins which you can use to buy different weapons from the arcade machine in between levels. Also, as you start the next level, you are given tips that will help you throughout.
Once you are ready to start, you will notice a game board that is on one side of the table that flips over and shows the JB book that will start to tell the story of the prince as he moves throughout the Sugar Kingdom and continues as you keep moving the game piece to the different spots on the game board.
Now before we go any further, I will say that I was not paying attention to the amount of ammo my weapon could hold as I was paying more attention to what was coming at me and waiting for the next ammo to pop up. Each weapon holds a certain amount of ammo which if you can take your eyes off the action for a fraction of a second, will be able to see. Once I realized this, I was able to concentrate for the better.
Each level is not going to have you be in one spot shooting everything that comes at you, but there are some levels where you are solving a puzzle, boss battles, hitting the beats with the music, and even a moving cart as you try and shoot everything that comes your way and these are the ones, at least for me, were my favorite to play and had to replay them just for the fun of it all.
Earlier, I mentioned the arcade machine. With this machine, not only can you use the coins that you have built up playing the different levels to buy new weapons, but you can also play an actual game on the machine.
So let’s talk about the graphics and sound. Each of the levels is themed and it’s interesting to see how the story unfolds and how those levels are themed based on the story and where you are on the game board. Everything looks really good on the Quest 3 with enemies having surprised, annoyed, and even smiling looks on their faces. With the levels, you have some that use darker nighttime scenes with darker colors such as level one to having more vibrant colors when it is daytime and being outside. It gets interesting when you start to see how things are put together, such as in the attic, and you can tell the Prince added his touch that gives it this home feeling. I also liked how each weapon was handled differently and how the strategy may need to be changed up some.
With the sound, things sounded as they should. From the start when you open the chest with the key to unlocking it to when you are shooting with your weapon with more gentle sounds of riding on the tracks as you are hearing the pops from your weapon to even the music of the later levels all sounded clear and clean that doesn’t have anything to empowering the ears to where you would need to turn down the volume.
There are a few things that I would love to see. First, leaderboards. It would be a fun way for players to keep coming back to try and beat the high scores. Second, pass and play. Since Sugar Mess – Let’s Play Jolly Battle can be played by anyone and any age permitted, it would be fun to have different profiles set up so that after a level is passed, you could then pass on the headset and have one of your friends or family members try and do their best to get the highest score. Third, more cart levels and more variety. I will say it again, playing the cart levels is fun and I replayed them two or three times before moving on. And then when you add the levels with music, I was having fun as it was a nice change of pace, and I hope there will be more of these in the future. Fourth, Multiplayer and Co-op modes. With the type of game that this is, having multiplayer and/or Co-op very well just adds even more fun. The good news is that it looks like this will be coming soon as the developer is currently working on having an Arena Mode which will be interesting to see. And finally, more VR games. If you were not aware or maybe the name Jolly Battle might sound familiar, that’s because there are Jolly Battle games that have been around for a while, including Jolly Battle that’s on the App Store, Google Play Store, & Steam, Jigsaw Puzzle on the App Store & Google Play Store, and the upcoming Jolly Match that will be on the App Store & Google Play Store soon; but this is the first Jolly Battle game for Virtual Reality and it made me just want to keep playing.
Sugar Mess – Let’s Play Jolly Battle does bring the variety and wraps it up into individual candy pieces for anyone of any age, from those who are young enough to use VR to those who are a child at heart, to go on this adventure of a story. Sure, it may not be for those who are looking for a blood thirst of a hunt, but it never had the intent of doing so. In life, we are sometimes hit with challenges that sometimes can be considered cruel and heartbreaking, but then there are those doors of opportunity that show that we should never judge a book by its cover or we may just miss opportunity knocking.
Sugar Mess – Let’s Play Jolly Battle is out now for Quest, 2, 3, & Pro via App Lab on the Meta Store and the Pico Store, and coming soon to PlayStation VR2 on the PlayStation Store, and Steam VR. A review code was provided.
To learn more about JellyCo, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Instagram, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time, I am going back to increase my score and get more of those yummy enemies.
