Mr. Run and Jump Review

Mr. Run and Jump is a precision-based platformer in which you will take control of the titular character (or Ms. Run and Jump or Run and Jump, depending on your main-screen choice) to run through neon-lit worlds following a pupper across the levels.

Featured as one of my most-anticipated titles coming in July, Mr. Run and Jump is published by Atari and developed by Graphite Labs, a team you might recognise for their work on Kombinera, which I previously reviewed on the website on its release. Now, with a new title and a new genre, can the team continue a proper track record of enjoyable arcade-like games?

Composed of six worlds with four levels each, you'll start Mr. Run and Jump with a blast-to-the-past visual as you progress through a pixelated and colourless world with seemingly no purpose. Once you've reached the end of the tutorial, the world explodes into colour, after which you're transported to a neon world and introduced to the villain — the void. After this, Mr. Watch and Learn — an eyeball — tells you about the dog you've been following, Leap, and talks about the world's neon transformation.

Your goal henceforth is to follow Leap through the six levels of colour that you'll experience in Mr. Run and Jump. What starts as a seemingly simple task in the Violet world becomes much more complex as you progress through the game.

Run and Jump's abilities are rather simple, and you are introduced to them throughout the Violet world. Running and jumping are a bit of a given, and from there, it's different variations — a long jump, a tall jump, a double jump, a dive, and a mid-jump dive. The platforming begins to take advantage of these abilities, and when you start feeling a bit clever with your combos (tall jump into a mid-jump dive interrupted by a double jump for a second, free mid-jump dive...), you soon find that they become important combinations that you'll use in the more complex levels.

Every time you advance into a new colour, a slew of enemies is introduced to stand in your path. Although they are non-reactive and follow a single pattern, the more enemies you unlock, the more complicated it becomes to make it through the levels. After a tough trial through three different levels per world, your final one will be a race against the void that is all too fun. Using everything at your disposal, you have to ensure you outrun it and — for completionists — get the various collectibles present in each level.

There are several shards that you can collect and three Challenge orbs per level. Obtaining these is entirely optional aside from the Challenge orbs that unlock a final world (the Dark one), depending on how many you've gotten. These were enjoyable to attain, with different gimmicks and mechanics you'll need to get used to, and they consist of a one-panel world filled to the brim with hazards.

But none of this compares to Mr. Run and Jump's best feature — the Time Trials; in these, you'll be tasked with passing every level you've beaten at least once with the best possible time. With an upturned nose and a smug grin across my face, I took up the challenge and failed miserably for hours. The perfection required to achieve the lowest time in each level (in order to get the Platinum medal from the available Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers) is an enjoyable task that demands a lot from the player and learning each level closely.

Although that’s a lot of technical views from the game, the simplest way I can describe Mr. Run and Jump is that it’s just fun. It’s been a while since I last played a game with so much stress that either my back starts hurting from tension or my thumb hurts from smacking the A button with vigour. The levels don’t take too long to start becoming punishing, and it just adds to the fun — the game doesn’t need to be longer because it provides tenfold in enjoyment.

As you progress through each level, it's easy to get lost trying to pass a particularly tricky part with different jump combinations. Or whenever you spend too long doing a specific level for a Platinum medal, there are few feelings that equate the joy of seeing a millisecond shaved off, or an entire second, or even completing the challenge overall. As a fan of trying over and over again, being forced to pass the level without dying — all the while trying to go as fast as possible — is an extra challenge that although not necessary, made Mr. Run and Jump a memorable experience I will not only not be forgetting for a while, but not dropping, either.

The gameplay elements in Mr. Run and Jump very closely resemble my first foray into the genre with Celeste — it plays smoothly and has seemingly simple mechanics that quickly become complex in creative and unique level design. From the campaign levels to the post-game content in the form of Time Trials and the Dark world, Mr. Run and Jump is a title I couldn't recommend more to platformer aficionados.