Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions Review

Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions is a turn-based strategy game that tells us the story of a 10-year-old named Damien. He is moving from his home in France to Japan, which is a 13-hour flight away. To help him cope, he uses his imagination to face these new challenges, becoming the intergalactic hero named Captain Velvet Meteor. We see his sketches showing him leaving his friends and school. The words on the pages are in French with a bit of hiragana written in, like the characters for watashi and moi written in French beside it (it means me or I in English). We also see sketches of multiple kaiju that surely represent Japan (Nihon).

Everyone in his family is excited to go live with his grandmother, except for him. He is shy and introverted, so he doesn’t want to have to meet new people and make new friends. He starts an exploration log that shows his character, Captain Velvet Meteor, going into the far regions of the galaxy. You have a handy robot sidekick named Jay-P travelling with you when you are hit by another spacecraft full of monsters. This causes your ship, Velvet Wonder, to fall, activating the emergency landing. He puts out a distress call, asking anyone who hears this message to send help. Damien is now in Kyoto, Japan, and his alter ego has crash-landed on an alien planet. The first thing you and Jay-P need to do is locate your ship's crash site.

The left stick is used to move the amount of spaces equal to the number of movement points you have. You can only move five tiles at the start, and you can undo this if you want. Once in the location you want, hold the A button to complete that move. The first thing you need to do is find Jay-P. The Y button opens camera mode, where you can look around and use the R thumbstick to zoom out and see more of the environment around you. There are obstacles in your way that can be taken out with your MeteorGun and Jay-P's antenna. You can swap between the two characters using RB at any point to move the character in the spot you want. This will also determine what kind of attacks each can do: solo or if they are in the right position, they will be able to team up, taking out enemies and obstacles like rocks and fences in the way.

You detect hostile creatures that are small enough for you to step on them to kill them. You both walk over the tiles that they are located on and discover that your vitals have improved after doing this. It seems that these creatures had cosmic healing energy that was released by stepping on them. Every time you kill an enemy, you earn health points; the more you hit at once, the more health you gain. Both characters share the same health bar; if it reaches zero, you have lost the battle. Once your move is done, the enemy will take their turn and advance towards you or attack. It's easy to tell if it's the monster's turn, as tentacles appear on the outside of the screen when they have control.

Some of the enemies you defeat will drop extra movement points that allow you to move your character further. These bonus points are located under your health bar. Besides these points, enemies can also drop Power Orbs; collect three of them to charge your Power Combo Gauge, this allows you to perform one of these strong moves, place your characters on the yellow explosion-like symbols on the ground; this will trigger a Power Combo to be released on your enemies.

Once all the enemies are defeated and you get into the ship, you learn that its energy level is really low and needs to be replenished so that you can power the ship back up. Captain Velvet Meteor will need to explore this alien planet to find sources of energy to use if they hope to get off this world. Jay-P needs to remain plugged into the ship to run the needed repairs. The bot can speak with you on the radio and use the teleportation beam to keep you out of harm's way.

You are interrupted by yelling that snaps you back into the real world, asking if you have finished unpacking and informing you that there's a list of chores you need to complete. We are now in Damien's bedroom. He had his boxes unpacked, posters hung, and manga on the bookshelf already. So we explore the room to learn more about Damien. He's a fan of the SPY × FAMILY anime, as we see a poster hanging over the desk where he does his drawing. We find a super special sticker that is used on the Super Mega Bingo Plus + board — that is hand drawn of course. This isn’t a mini-game per say, more of a sticker collector. Retrieve enough stickers and get a bingo to win prizes.

We leave the bedroom and explore the house, looking for the family dog, Lucien. Walking through the house, we see that the inspiration for Jay-P is a floor-cleaning robot that his family has. Damien hears the dog barking and heads to the backyard to see why all the commotion. Lucien, the dog, seems angry and upset, so this is a job for Captain Velvet Meteor. We are instantly transported back to the spaceship; I love how seamlessly the game jumps between the two!

Jay-P has created a hologram of the planet that you can use to transport to the different areas that you want to explore. This also allows you to replay previous areas that you have experienced before. You set out on your first mission and encounter a large monster that you haven't met before. He is not a foe, but someone who has been pulled into this world just like you. He calls the creatures you fight after-beasts; they are little monsters produced by a huge "base monster." This character is Kafka, a member of the Japanese Defence Force, and you may recognise him from the Kaiju No. 8 manga. 

As you did earlier with Jay-P, Captain Velvet is able to team up with Kafka to do powerful attacks and combos to clear out the hordes of after-beasts. To stop them from appearing, you will need to destroy the base monster in the area. When the teammates attack together, their combo does a great job of pushing back the enemy and destroying the weak ones, but against larger enemies, it only does a small amount of damage. 

For stronger foes, you are better off using their solo attacks that inflict more damage on a smaller number of enemies. If you collect the orbs dropped by enemies, this special combo attack is very strong and is sure to take out multiple targets. The game shows you exactly where your attack will hit before you select it, so this makes it easy to figure out which move will hit the most enemies or target the ones that you want to take out before you confirm your move. 

Once you encounter the boss, your objective changes, and the goal is to defeat them. The game shows you exactly where the boss's attacks will hit, so you can try to be strategic and adapt where you move to account for this. These huge enemies are strong, and it will likely take a few attempts to defeat them. If you run out of health, you have the option to try again or go back to the ship.

Once you defeat the first boss, Kafka joins your team and accompanies you while you explore. Besides fighting off enemies, there are challenges like a large bomb that will require you to clear the area in a set number of turns before it explodes. There are always new obstacles that you will have to figure out a way to overcome; the game is quite challenging but rewarding when you are successful in your mission.

Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions has a great hand-drawn look to it like it's a graphic novel come to life, and that's not including the great kid stories that tell the stories of Captain Velvet and his adventures. It feels like I am flipping through notebooks of epic stories from a child's imagination, adding an innocent and wholesome feel to the game.

The music is catchy and feels very positive and upbeat. It fits the feeling of exploration and adventure very well, and it was never dull or boring to listen to. There is no voice acting, but I am good with that decision. I prefer thinking of the voice in my head for the characters, especially the ones I am already familiar with, like Kafka from Kaiju No. 8.

Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions is full of creativity and imagination to go along with a great real-life story talking about change and how hard it is to move and leave your friends behind. It might get a bit repetitive at times fighting off hordes of enemies, but the inclusion of characters from various Jump+ properties was great. It motivated me to keep playing to discover all the other heroes that would show up that I could team up with in this imaginary world!