To run and jump is one of the earliest forms of play. It’s also clearly one of the best, as we’ve iterated on it so many times. From Olympic-level sports to post-climb cannonballs into a lake, there’s no end to how we enjoy such a simple act. So iconic is the run and jump, it even gave us one of the core genres of video games: the platformer. And in a post-Celeste world, the platformer is in a unique place. Cemented as a titan of the medium, yet still chasing the highs of glories past. Good ones have come and go, but a great one is yet to prove itself.
Enter Mr. Run and Jump, a 2D precision platformer from the one and only Atari. A spiritual successor to its namesake on the Atari 2600, Mr. Run and Jump brings back its main duo of the titular character and his best friend, Leap the Dog. Quite literally: the opening is a fun little homage to the original 2600 game, serving as a short tutorial and story setup. We’re shown the basics, introduced to the enigmatic and mildly terrifying Void, and transported to the neon-soaked levels of today to… well, run and jump. And run and jump we do.
Mr. Run and Jump starts out ridiculously fun. The character’s full moveset is available from the jump, and is incredibly intuitive even before each part is properly tutorialised. There are double jumps, crouch jumps for extra height, long jumps for extra distance, and even midair dives that can be cleverly combined with other moves for some really flashy gambols. Add in obstacles that make full use of your toolkit in fun combinations from early on, and you’ve got an immediately satisfying experience.
The first world is a treat, serving as a gradual ramp up in difficulty and culminating in a Void run. Every world ends in one such level. Void runs are tightly-designed races against the clock—or, the big writhing wall of darkness creeping up on you from stage left. However you’d like to put it. There are still platforming challenges to beat and shiny collectibles to nab, but a much less forgiving window to grab them in. I spent a good amount of time learning the layout of each room in the level between deaths, practicing my gambits again and again until I could do them flawlessly. Given death only resets you to the start of the current room with an almost instant respawn, this initially proved a fun pursuit of mastery.
Mastery isn’t the only thing we’re pursuing. Mr. Run and Jump offers two types of shiny things to grab in each gauntlet: blue triangular chips and orange orbs. The former are spread throughout every room, while the latter number only three in each level, and are their own side challenges. At first, these are great. I even figured out a neat trick to avoid the collectible reset that comes with death—collect the initial chips, back out to the previous room, and your progress will be saved when returning to the current room. This also works with moving backwards, as even the most dastardly challenge can be reverse engineered for backtracking.
Much like the ever-encroaching Void, however, there are some issues sneaking ever closer as time goes on. The first is with the collectibles. By the end of just the second world, I was averaging around 40 minutes on a single level. The collectathon nature of the game all but encouraged me to meticulously sweep each level, repeating rooms again and again until I could collect every chip and orb and make it to the next room alive. This naturally takes quite a bit of time, and grows laborious after multiple levels in a row. The ability to break longer challenges up into more manageable chunks still isn’t enough of a sweet reprieve to save Mr. Run and Jump from its pacing issues.
Missing just a single collectible after poring over the level is demoralising. Missing just a single collectible after seeing it flash by you in a Void level’s pseudo-speedrun is hilariously heartbreaking. Success, but at what cost? There’s almost a fun balance here, but it’s a bit disheartening for would-be completionists. Even people just trying to finish Mr. Run and Jump need a certain number of orbs to progress, so it can feel unfair when you miss one just by doing the level properly, and potentially have to restart later.
Even on the few occasions where I forced myself to just focus on the challenge and move on, the gauntlets themselves proved intense. Too intense. I’m all for a serious challenge, but to place multiple high-difficulty rooms one after another with almost no ebb and flow meant I was always giving 110% just to beat a single level. By the third world onwards, Mr. Run and Jump begins to feel excessively demanding. Every level has its fun moments, and is definitely doable with perseverance, but it is a lot. Levels simply drag on for way too long for this degree of challenge. Given the constant learning by death, the game can become a repetitive slog which gives more relief that it’s over than satisfaction from accomplishment—for individual rooms, let alone entire levels.
While there are options to make the game easier, such as invincibility stars if you die in the same room one too many times or checkpoints on longer challenges, these don’t do much. Each room is its own checkpoint anyway, and invincibility stars lock you out of collectibles. A much better way to make Mr. Run and Jump feel better to play would’ve been to fluctuate the degree of challenge throughout a level, rather than constantly ramp up. Think 2021’s Back Again. With the approach taken here, though, the only thing that ebbs and flows is the initial euphoria this precision platformer offers.
When the game flows, it shines, offering some of the smoothest and most gratifying platforming this side of Celeste. When it keeps hammering the player with intense room after intense room, it becomes a pit that even the most adept platformer fan would struggle to run and jump out of. I want to love Mr. Run and Jump, but as it is, that feels like just too much of a leap for me.
Sarim reviewed Mr. Run and Jump on PlayStation 5 with a review code provided by the publisher.
