I checked the carabiner.
I decided to trust the line.
I swung on the rope.
And then–
Jusant review
Now.
I could have swung across the gap and connected with the other part of the bridge.
But from this angle I could also see something below me.
A cleft in the rock.
A lacuna, as my neurologist would say.
My game brain said: optional detail.
It said: nice to have.
But something else in my brain said: church.
Church, yes - and yet it was so far down, so much of a risk.
And that bridge above me with its easy holds… Easy progress…?
It was indeed optional stuff, nice to have.
What’s important about this moment was that I wanted to get to that church so much.
Not because I’m a completionist.
It was so much purer than that.
I was compelled to visit this magical half-hidden thing that people had made and that I had glimpsed.
I couldn’t live with the feeling of having passed it by.
I’m not a completionist.
This isn’t completionism.
It’s something else.
Again and again, Jusant compels me.
It’s the game for me.
It’s futuristic and fantastical, but only softly so.
The world has changed.
Lives lived up on the crags.
That’s the plot really: the world is dying, so head upwards.
The game isn’t faking very much.
That’s the basics, anyway.
You also learn to read the climbing wall and pick between optional paths.
you might run out of pitons, or you might place so many that you run out of rope.
you’ve got the option to tangle yourself up and trap yourself beneath your own rope.
Oh, the things you could do incorrectly here.
Better get to a position where you’re free to stand and regain the whole bar again!
Jusant reminds me of Dark Souls and its ilk in this way.
It means every chunk of wall feels like a little narrative filled with its own wordless drama.
I imagine this is what climbing is like?
And then you get the complications.
you’re free to trigger plants to grow, racing up walls and providing new handholds.
If the sun is too hot, the buds will wither quickly so you have to move.
It’s tense stuff, requiring spatial intelligence and imagination.
And it’s utterly thrilling.
A feel for beauty, even as the waters recede and survival becomes scrappy.
There’s range to the game’s imagination.
For a game about cliffs, Jusant’s incredibly good at crafting indoor spaces.
And it’s often optional.
It’s not all optional.
The wonders in there: the bioluminescent mushrooms and scattering critters!
The traversal puzzles as rock wall meets wooden gantries and rusting machinery.
Jusant makes sure its climbing still feels tentative, and often trail-blazing.
It makes sure it feels like exploration.
And as for the rewards?
A copy of Jusant was provided for review by Don’t Nod.
