There are no goals, in Jusant. There is no purpose, there are no enemies, there is no fighting, not a word is said. There is nothing except the protagonist, some animals and the mountain. A huge, gigantic, high mountain with no end in sight.
It seems like every climber’s dream, and in fact it is a bit: Jusant is perhaps the only video game that allows you to feel like a climber of the caliber of Ueli Steck, Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnoldstarting precisely from the feeling of cohesion with the mountain (which Honnold recounts in the beautiful documentary Free Solo). Jusant it’s a game to relax, not to blast your opponents, conquer treasures or save worlds: this it can be an advantage or a flawdepending on the type of gamer you are.
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What Jusant is talking about
Own Free Solo it is among other things quoted by DontNod developers (yes, they are the touching ones Life Is Strange) as a source of inspiration for work on Jusantwhich from October 31st is available for Windows, PlayStation 5 e Xbox X ed S: it costs 24.99 euros and we tried it on the more powerful of the two Microsoft consoles, given that it is included in the Game Pass.
In French, the word jusant means callus, decreaseand is usually referred to the reflux of the sea, that is, to its lowering: the game is titled like this because the mountain we were talking about at the beginning is actually a tower that rises in the middle of what it was once an ocean and now it is a desertafter the water has all receded.
As he climbs towards the top, the protagonist discovers that what happened to the people who lived in the tower thanks to the testimonies they left behind, to the remains found in their homes, in their restaurants, in their shops: he doesn’t climb to find out, he discovers it while climbing. It seems the same thing but it’s not the same thing: climbing, climbing, reaching as high as possible are the essence of the experience con Jusant. Everything else is a side dish.
A great outline, it must be said: the tower is divided into different environments, from the initial one which seems the Tibet until the final one which vaguely recalls Ireland, passing through a sort of incrocio fra Arches and Mesa Verde, a sort of little Venice among the rocks, with canals and a system of locks, and other areas that are all beautiful to see. This is one of the main advantages of the game: the graphic rendering is truly remarkable and rewarding great involvementso much so that looking down or up to see where you started from or where you are going is truly satisfying.
What it’s like to play Jusant
The other indisputable advantage is the control systemwhich is well thought out and effective without being complex: the left joypad trigger controls the left armthe one on the right replicates the movements of right armtheir pressure is alternated and combined with the direction of the gaze to decide where to put the hands, which handhold to hold on to and how to continue the climb.
It’s easier to do than explain and you quickly learn to master it, as well as you quickly learn to go fast (because in some cases it is fundamental) and also you learn to improvise, perhaps to get out of a complex situation with a little imagination. And it’s a really good feeling.
It must be said that Jusant It’s not a long game (it can easily be finished in a weekend) and it’s not even a difficult game. Also because it doesn’t want to be: as someone wrote, it is in fact “as if Death Stranding e Ico had had a child”, in the sense that it is one of those video games where the point is not the destination but the journey. In which the atmosphere and the feeling of really doing what you’re doing dominate: some climbs are actually more tiring, and getting to the top makes you breathe a genuine sigh of relief, the rope (because obviously there’sit’s a rope and there are rock bolts) changes color to warn you that it is about to end, the windiest or sunniest passages are more challenging than the others and also push you to look for alternatives to try to get around them.
Jusant it’s not a perfect game, but It’s a great game and one that should be played, because it is yet another excellent example of the fact that you don’t need millionaire budgets to give well-made gaming experiences. And you don’t even need to charge them 70-90 euros. Yes: it’s a bit on the tracks, and perhaps a few more crossroads wouldn’t have been bad, just as it would have been nice to see the effects of day/night alternation or other atmospheric agents on the protagonist’s climbing abilities, but these are all things that will perhaps arrive in a possible sequel. Which we really hope to see, because the little, big universe of the tower honestly is too interesting to pass up. And also because we want to read more letters from Bianca.
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What we liked
What we didn’t like
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