Gaming Target - Game Boy: Jackie Chan Adventures: Legend of the Dark Hand

Written by Matt Swider on February 04, 2002

Review: Because the Chan Man Can.

Avid Saturday morning cartoon junkies may be familiar with Jackie Chan's new animated show running on Kids WB. However, those who don't rise early enough on their day off might not be as aware of the series' existence. To shed light on the premise of Jackie Chan Adventures, each episode pits Jackie, along with his niece Jade, as an archeologist that solves crime using the martial arts moves and kung fu style that the real life Chan is known for.

It didn't take long for someone to move in on the license and create a videogame based on the fast-paced action of the TV series. In developing Jackie Chan Adventures, Torus Games has created a title similar to the classics Double Dragon or Final Fight. The martial arts master is now looking to retrieve eight ancient scrolls stolen by the Dark Hand organization. This is where our hero's job begins through 10 stages of kung fu action.

The colorful Game Boy Advance visuals found in Jackie Chan Adventures mirror the cartoon directly, providing an excellent translation between the two. The side scrolling beat Сem up type game suits Jackie Chan Adventures, and fits what the show is all about. The setting of each location Chan visits is full of details, interactive items, and fine backdrops. The stages are quite expansive, allowing more freedom than one might expect. Jackie can stroll the streets, climb atop roofs, smash hanging objects, and pick up a number of martial arts and makeshift weapons along the way. Picking things up doesn't stop at just items. Players are also able to grab enemies and toss them across the screen into another advancing foe.

A street brawler is just the game where Jackie Chan can pull off all his best moves. It's possible to perform a variety of attacks and easily link them together for effective combos. After successfully executing a move or combo on an enemy, its name appears at the bottom of the screen along with the number of points earned and how many times it was pulled off consecutively. From there it's added to the total score of the game, which is saved and tallied at the end of each level. Not only does the game drive players to beat their best score but it also ranks them with colored belts. The entire scoring system is well planned and almost ingenious in taking full advantage of the martial arts aspect of the title.

The downside to game like Jackie Chan Adventures is that its genre has a tendency to become dull after a while. The problem with beat Сem up titles such as this is that there is a lack of puzzles and clever schemes to complete the levels or topple the bad guys. This is a needed aspect that could really help power the genre a bit further. The only thing close to this here is the ability to acquire new moves at the end of each level. Still, the variety of action is at a minimum and the game's difficulty settings merely increase the amount of blocking enemies do. Although a big upside to progressing through Jackie Chan Adventures is the ability to save the game at the end of each stage, the slight gripe I have comes when encountering the bosses. Once you reach the end of the level it is a case of either beating the boss or having to restart the entire stage over again. A more reasonable setup would have been giving gamers the chance to fight the boss again after dying. In any case, this is a small gripe, and I'm quite pleased to see the battery save method used.

Finally we come to the audio aspects of Jackie Chan Adventures. The music fits nicely with the game's theme, offering authentic Chinese beats and other tunes to go along. The sound effects are clear and precise with hits resulting from punches and kicks and muffled strikes when an enemy is blocking. While both sound effects and the music become repetitive, they present something that is a cut above a good portion of other Game Boy Advance works.