Super Jazz Man

Superheroes are always portrayed as the embodiment of true altruism, with no flaws, hesitations, or doubts about what is good and what is evil. But they are much more relatable when they display human imperfections, especially in video games where you must play as one of them and use their powers to your advantage.

Super Jazz Man is a point-and-click adventure game in which you get to play the role of a rather strange superhero as he tries to balance his unique powers with a regular life. Since the genre itself is not very lively to begin with, most of your time is spent trying to click on things and interact with the environment, in order to solve the puzzles and move forward.

The story focuses on a certain event from Jazz Man’s life and it continues to unfold in front of your eyes, while you get to help the hero overcome the obstacles lying ahead. Plenty of humor is part of the equation as well, which makes the story that much more exciting and fun to follow. The same goes for dialogue, although it’s usually rather short and it tries to pack a lot into very few words.

Gameplay-wise, everything evolves in a pure point-and-click manner, which means that most of your job is to scour the environments for useful items. These can turn into quite the ugly pixel-hunting scenes, especially since the graphics are not very detailed and some of the objects are literally a few pixels wide. You also have an inventory to story the items, as well as the options to talk, use, or move.

As previously mentioned, the game uses retro 8-bit graphics to portray the world, so do not expect anything too great. For the nostalgic, this might prove to be a good thing, while the younger audience may prefer some soft shadows to get into the mood. In any case, the environments look detailed and you can usually tell what’s what, regardless of how simple it may be drawn.

When it’s all said and done, Super Jazz Man is not a jewel of the genre, nor is it a game that will change how you perceive the world around you. However, if given a chance, it can provide you with a few hours of innocent fun and entertainment, which is more than day-to-day life can offer you most of the time.