Thank you Outright Games for sending us a review code!

I watched the original Jumanji movie which was released in 1995. It’s about a board game that sucks the players into its hazardous world and the players must work to survive and find their way out and back to reality. Jumanji: Wild Adventures is based on the characters of the follow up movies Jumaji: Welcome to the Jungle and Jumanji: The Next Level. To modernize the concept it’s a video game version of Jumanji that sucks the players in!

Although the playable characters have the likeness of the star-studded cast (Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Ward, Karen Gillan), the voices are done by different actors and the changes are noticeable, especially with one of the male character’s voices being very flamboyant.

To escape the world of Jumanji, your character and/or party members must locate the stolen jewel known as “The Jaguar’s Eye”. Your party is thrown into a big island with three warring factions (pirates, mercenaries, and wild folk) who are all suspect in stealing this jewel. In order to locate the jewel, you’ll have to smack the truth out of them.

There’s an overworld view of the island where you can drive your vehicle to various levels and shops to explore them further. As you enter a level, you’ll get to select your character and other nearby players can join at any given time. Given that each character has a unique ability, you may have to play a level multiple times as different characters to unlock all of the secrets within.

Here’s a break down of each character’s abilities:

Dr. Smolder Bravestone - Has a totem power-up that can be used as a projectile weapon
Franklin "Mouse" Finbar – With his fire extinguisher he can put out fires and access secret areas
Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon - Has a special pickaxe that can break special locks, he also has a shield that can block projectiles
Ruby Roundhouse - Martial artist whose roundhouse kicks make quick work of hostile threats

In the beginning, your character starts off with three health hearts and a basic weapon. As you complete levels, your character will earn experience and gain levels. When your character levels up they can get more health hearts. Money can be found in levels and even on the overworld in treasure chests. With the coins you can purchase better weapons, clothes, and even pets at the shops.

Along with selecting a character at the beginning of a level, you’ll also get to see its additional challenge. The challenges can be completing the level under a certain time, defeating all of the enemies, destroying a specified number of statues, etc. Each level also has the letters J, U, M, A, N, J, I that can be located for additional rewards. If you replay a level, the previously collected letters will be credited to you already.

The levels will have giant bugs, hostile humans, fire, spikes, cannon balls, moving platforms and more all trying to decrease your heart count. When you take damage, half of a heart is typically removed. Many levels have areas blocked by keys that need to be located or switches that need to be triggered before progressing. Each area of the island has a boss that needs to be defeated to see if they were behind the theft of the sacred jewel.

There is a lot of violence, but it’s bloodless. Ruby Roundhouse often says “H*ll yeah!” when smashing stuff with her powerful kicks. Other than that, Jumanji: Wild Adventures is pretty family-friendly.

There is no online multiplayer, but you can play Jumanji: Wild Adventures with up to 3 other people locally. Upon saving the game you’ll see your completion percentage. Jumanji: Wild Adventures should be able to be completed in under ten hours. Given the short campaign length and average gameplay I would hold off on a sale before buying Jumanji: Wild Adventures. I have seen it on sale for under $20 and for that price, it’s worth picking up if you have people to play with. If not, expect a lot of repetition by replaying as different characters to unlock everything.