Jusant — a climbing simulator with a compelling story to tell
After unfortunately being unable to play Jusant for months on my Xbox — I’ve got beef with Microsoft — I decided to try it out on my computer and fell in love within seconds.
This climbing adventure starring a child with no name or discernible gender and their little water creature pulled me in immediately with the mechanics. This climbing adventure requires you to be conscientious and participate in every handhold the character reaches out for. It’s immediately addictive and relaxing.
Despite having no dialogue, this climbing simulator has a story to tell throughout this epic tower you’re climbing. The world has dried up, the ocean gone, rain a myth. You don’t encounter a single other living soul, but you find their stories scattered throughout. The environmental storytelling is compelling and fascinating; there is one character whose letters you find throughout a long expedition, and you find yourself not wanting to miss a single letter, wanting to see how her story ends.
My one qualm with this game, is that the entire plot is told through environmental storytelling — which I love — but collectibles are easy to miss. I ended the game with many letters still missing, which I found frustrating as they were my only source of storytelling. If your plot is entirely reliant on letters scattered throughout the environment, there should be better indicators of where they are; you little friend can echo and locate certain collectibles, but unfortunately letters are not one of them.
I was hoping that once I finished the game there would be an option to go back, and luckily there is. Each chapter is split up and shows exactly how many of each collectible you still have left to be found, so it mostly made up for that one issue, although I have yet to dive back in. This really is just a testament to how well the story is told; letters from people long gone, a history you don’t understand but want to, slowly unfolding in front of you from people trying to survive an unheard-of drought.
The visuals of this game are magnificent as well; you traverse several different gorgeous biomes, and each time you are on the outer areas of the tower, the vastness of the dry landscape stretches out before you. You character as well will sometimes stop to look, when you travel into a new area.
Another small detail I love, is that when you leave the game — there’s no manual save feature but the autosave is abundant — you return to a main menu showing your character sitting on a ledge, looking out at the view, waiting for you. When you hit “Continue,” it’s a smooth transition back into gameplay, the menu sliding out of frame, and your character standing up and immediately becoming controllable again. Details like that help to immerse you in the world and I think it’s a fantastic touch.
Overall, this game is a great adventure, and if you have 4 to 5 hours and a controller, it’s highly worth it.
It gets a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars from me.
Jusant can be found on all consoles and PC.
