Juka is not the type of game I normally choose to play but I thought I’d branch out and try something new. I mainly play online games like World of Warcraft and Puzzle Pirates. I like sim games. I have my handheld games for those times I just want to lounge in bed and put my feet up, but still keep gaming. For my handheld games, I like Nintendogs, Cooking Mama and Big Brain Academy.
The objective, as close as I can tell, is to run around and collect ingredients for potions, collect various musical instruments, collect gems, collect elements and collect formulas – so I would have to say there is a lot of collecting involved. The running around reminds me a bit of the one Zelda game I tried – at least in the running around trying to find hidden things in the landscape part.
There are various bad guys to defeat. So far I’ve used my sound staff to collect sonic attacks and throw it back in their faces and I’ve used sleep potions to send thieves into nap-time.
I seem to be accumulating quests in my journal as I go along. I need to get parts for Bufo to fix his organ and his teleporter. I need to find the missing mom of a little boy. I need to find out what happened to the missing villagers. I need to find someone named Maestro. And eventually, it sounds like I need to face the dastardly Monophonic Menace.
But what did I think of the game, you're probably wondering. Well, here's the good.
The graphics are attractive and very colorful. It’s a pretty world that little Juka is running around. The background music is bouncy and cheerful.
The tutorial is fairly descriptive. It explains what you’re doing game-wise, as well as describing what buttons you need to push. Initially you are given explicit actions. As you progress you are pretty much free to muck things up under your own steam. As new elements are introduced, your friend Bufo, the tutorial narrator, will pop up with further information.
If you walk near an item that you can interact with, a red exclamation point pops up. I found this very helpful. The landscape is detailed enough that you could spend a lot of time poking at things that are just supposed to look pretty, if you didn’t have this handy little assist.
I like collecting the different components for making potions. I really like that part where you violently shake the plants and trees to get them to release their vital essence.
Making the potions is neat. There’s a different musical tone for each ingredient as you add it to your mixture. When you’re ready, you push the big red button (ok, click A) and mix away. If you got the formula right, you’re rewarded with a potion. I have wondered if you can get anything by trying to make up your own mixes, but I have not been successful. I tried a few different combinations of my own (after saving) and I got a message that it’s not a valid combination. I can live with that. Worse things could have happened. Like explosions, or poison, or bigger explosions even. You can use up to 6 units of each of 6 different components. Odds of finding a useful combination at random were not on my side.
The sonic staff and sound shield are different from the usual forms of combat I’ve seen (usually hand weapons or explosives of some kind). Some of the bad guys use sound attacks. You have to catch the visual sound bolts in patterns. You build up enough caught attacks and then you can launch a whammy back at the bad guy. I admit that my staff skills are not what they should be at this point, but I’ve still managed to muddle through and defeat a few of the sonic attackers.
Now for the bad:
The game rating states that the game is suitable for ages 6 and up. The content may be suitable, but there is a lot of reading involved in this game. My 6 year old reads very well, and these instructions are beyond what she understands.
You can only save the game at specific signposts you find as you move through the game. Maybe this is the standard for this type of game, but I found it frustrating. As a mom, if I need to go right away, I will lose my progress unless I happen to be right by a save point when I’m “paged”.
There are only two save game slots. If I find that I’ve messed up badly more than two saves back, I’m going to have to start over from the beginning.
And worse than that, there's the confusing:
I’m not sure how they decided on what to call the different potion components. While the green ingredients are green (pretty much) and the blue ingredients are blue, the yellow ingredients are actually red, and they’re collected from purple plants. What’s the deal with that? I spent a while getting started trying to find something yellow from which to collect my yellow ingredients. I shook this little purple flower out of frustration and out popped little bottles of stuff. I walked over them and found out I was in fact collecting my yellow ingredients.
In conclusion, I would say that Juka is an intrepid little guy in an interesting world. He has a lot of nice abilities and items to collect and a pretty world to explore. I think if you enjoy this style of game, you will have a great time exploring with Juka. Unfortunately for Juka and his world, I tend to get frustrated with this type of game play. I have no doubt he could save the world, if only not hampered by one devastating weakness – me.
I’m a working mom – married with one child. My daughter is 7 and she has autism. Everything else in my life moves around this core. Online gaming has been a big part of my social life over the last several years due to the difficulty of going out and about. I have to say that my daughter Alissa is awesome at computer games. She has skills with electronics that amaze me. When I get away from the computer, I like doing craft projects (knitting, crocheting, sewing, painting, quilling, whatever sounds fun) and reading. I mainly read suspense these days but I have a pretty eclectic collection and a library of about 6000 books. I’ve been using a computer since grade school – I started with an Apple IIe and have upgraded considerably and many times since then. I played Dungeons and Dragons for at least a few decades. I met and married my husband through gaming. He was my DM. I stopped tabletop gaming more from lack of time than anything. It’s easier to meet and game with friends online than it is to coordinate real life schedules around my daughter’s needs.
