Enter Jusant, a uniquely artistic game from developer Don’t Nod. This is one of those game that starts you out clueless and slowly hands yo tidbits of information to piece together the world that you’re playing through. We’ve seen other games like this such as Aer: Memories of Old (review here) and Lost Ember (review here) where the experience is more than the sum of its individual parts. Jusant follows in that same mold.
There’s a tower (or is it a mountain?). Who can say where it came from but it’s huge, it looks like people lived all over it at one time, and it’s utterly abandoned. You play a nameless protagonist who is headed to the tower and she’s scaling it. Along with her is a weird glob creature that seems to be her pet/companion and lives in a sack on her back. Ok. Your job? To climb the tower. There’s really nothing else there at the start. Why are you climbing it? Who’s to say? Where did it come from? Who knows. This is a mystery that you’ll have to unravel bit by bit. As you can imagine, the focus is only minimally on the story here. That story is told through notes and articles left behind by the former denizens of the tower. As you climb, you’ll slowly pick up note after note, allowing you to piece together a narrative tapestry that unveils the secrets of the tower. It’s not a fast process and the references are often obscure but you’ll get there eventually.
What you’re really here for is the climbing. If you’ve got fear of heights, this might not be the game for you. Everywhere you go, you’re climbing up sheer rock faces and moldering old wooden structures, swinging out into the abyss hundreds of feet up and jumping from grip to grip. It’s not as stressful as it sounds though as you’re always tied off and you cannot plummet to your doom. You can set pitons partway through a complex climb as well in order to extend your reach or swing to distant handholds or platforms. Swinging, climbing, and even edging across crumbling rock faces are all regular parts of the Jusant experience.
You’ll also notice a fair bit of world-building here with unique creatures, odd designs, and creative climbing options. Your globby friend can sing a song at the touch of a button, encouraging plants to grow and fireflies to swarm around you. These modular plants and animals allow you to progress further in the game as they shift alongside the magic of your pet/partner. Its song also activates ancient ruins all around the tower. Perhaps they’re part of the overriding story? Who can say. Either way, the effects are spectacular and the scenery and inventiveness only get wilder as Jusant progresses.
Climbing is a strangely soothing affair using the L and R triggers. Pressing one reaches for a handhold and the other brings the other hand up in the direction the left stick is pointing. Alternating between triggers allows you to climb rapidly and pressing X lets you jump up to grab a far away ledge, scrambling vertically with a spectacular amount of strength. You can hook up to hanging eyelets around the tower and swing in any direction as well. Don’t worry about falling, you really can’t. That’s probably a good thing as without a baked-in safety net, Jusant would be incredibly stressful due to the insane heights and death-defying jumps required.
Instead, the game becomes something of a casual puzzle game, requiring you to analyze the rock faces and other climbable areas one by one to decide how to proceed. Multiple routes are available in some areas and there are plenty of hidden areas that force you to backtrack as well. Once you figure out the way up, you’ll have to pay attention. Climb too fast and you’ll drain your stamina. Stopping to rest refills it but not fully and you’ll slowly get weaker on long climbs. Stamina is fully restored the instant you’re standing on solid ground though. In between climbs, you’ll be looking around the ruins of the tower dwellers homes. They seem to have left in a hurry and they left a lot of crap behind.
Jusant is interesting in that its entire focus is on climbing and exploration. There was a chance to turn the game into a collect-a-thon by adding tons of things to find but the devs chose to instead make this a more contemplative experience. You can stack a rock on top of other rocks that have been stacked occasionally and unlock some modern cave paintings and letters but that’s about it. Slowing down too long gets tedious fast as there’s very little to interact with in any given area and you don’t have items, armor, or any of the other trappings of most games.
You simply climb, occasionally turning on various ancient tech or listening to the memories of those that lived in the tower through seashells (no idea what that’s about). But you do it in style with creative climbing tricks, charming controls, and most importantly, spectacular visuals! What Jusant is missing in story, it makes up for in graphic design. This is a gorgeous game that evokes a mental image of Panzer Dragoon and other uniquely organic games. While the game isn’t completely soft edged, it has a remarkably unique aesthetic with clever use of color and lighting to ignite the player’s imagination and awe as you soar through flying mushroom forests on zip lines and fling yourself across bottomless chasms with only a rotting windmill to catch you. The strange creatures in the background are constantly changing in different areas of the tower too with an entire alien ecology growing out of the ruins of the tower before your eyes. While it’s not quite on par with the biosphere design from the recently released Scavengers Reign TV series on Max, it’s still an utterly stunning game that will definitely give you a few ‘wow’ moments.
Music on the other hand is subtle, fitting quietly into the background and soothing the player, almost at odds with the daredevil acrobatics of the gameplay. The soft soundtrack fades into your subconscious, relaxing you as you play and the quirky noises of the strange flora and fauna are expertly crafted to seem both alien and natural. The sound effects are especially neat and really complete the mood that Jusant is trying to set. The game’s soundscape is really more of an ambient experience than anything else, but that’s a welcome change from the intensely dramatic music that accompanies most games these days.
There are definitely a few flaws in Jusant however. The game is absolutely gorgeous for sure, but part of that is due to the minimalism of the visual design. This is a game that focuses on the experience over realism and there’s an almost old-school feel to the design work. Occasionally that means that your character doesn’t seem expressive enough, which takes away from the immersion. By the third or fourth chapter, the sameness of some of the cinema sequences starts to wear a bit. A few technical issues plague Jusant as well, at least on the PS5. Twice we had the music drop out entirely and only some sound effects were present during play. This made for a weirdly unpleasant experience and you don’t truly appreciate how much lifting the soundtrack is doing in the game until it’s gone. You can also get stuck in rocks fairly easily in the game. Jump too near a wall and you can get strapped in the connecting polygons. Jumping around like a crazy person while moving the camera generally gets you loose but it’s still irritating. This can even happen when swinging with your character hitting a rock and getting stuck alongside it. None of these problems are game breakers but they definitely interfere with the overall experience of the game.
Jusant is a unique sci-fi climbing simulator that’s both incredibly interesting and fun to play. While the sameness of the gameplay can get wearing after a while, even with new mechanics added every chapter, you’re only looking at a 4 or 5 hour experience for all six chapters of the game. That means a much more focused game that really has some power wrapped up in its presentation and will stick with you for a long time. At $25, that’s a short game but you’re definitely going to enjoy your experience unless you’re the sort of person that wants a bit more depth to their gameplay. Regardless, it’s worth your time to experience the fascinating world of Jusant and chances are you won’t regret it!
This review is based on a digital copy of Jusant provided by the publisher. It was played on a PS5 using a Sony 1080p TV. Jusant is also available for Xbox Series X and PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.