Platform: Switch
Publisher: High Horse Games
Developer: High Horse Entertainment
Genre: Action, Sports, Arcade, Multiplayer
Players: 4
Release Date: February 08, 2018
Annualized sports titles have a negative reputation for being too much of the same every year with the most significant changes to each edition being roster updates, new cinematic career modes, and more microtransactions. When Rocket League was released in 2015, it attracted an entire audience of gamers who were not interested in sports titles to what is essentially a soccer game. High Horse Entertainment’s Disc Jam seems to be taking it a step further by creating a brand new sport entirely; a physics-defying high-intensity mash-up of tennis, volleyball, and frisbee. Disc Jam’s pick-up and play nature plus no-frills access to gameplay, make it a great choice for quick fun by yourself or with friends, but its bare-bones presentation and a severe lack of play modes leave a lot to be desired.
If Pong Had a Complete Makeover
Disc Jam is all about throwing your disc past your opponent in order to score. The first person to score 50 points wins the round. A player needs to win 2 out of 3 rounds to win the match. Seems easy enough, right? Disc Jam builds on this basic Pong-esque gameplay by incorporating directional serves, far lobs, and super geometrical throws engulfed in flames. You can use the environment to your advantage by launching throws that zig-zag from wall to wall or getting up close to the net to block the disc back. Matches become even more intense and wild when playing 2v2 in doubles mode. You’re going to have to cooperate with your teammate by passing the disc to them if they are in a better position to score or coordinating which sides of the expanded arena you two are going to cover. It’s easy to understand the core gameplay of Disc Jam, but mastering the special throws and defensive techniques needed to secure a win, provide a level of depth that can change entirely with every round.
The core gameplay of Disc Jam is further amplified when you consider that character choice also plays a role. Disc Jam features 6 characters, the 4 original characters are available to select from at the beginning while the two new ones are unlockable with in-game currency and/or through microtransactions. Each of them features different stats that affect how hard they throw the disc, how far they can dive, or how quickly they move throughout the arena. For example, Makenna throws insanely wide curves that can confuse your opponent if they don’t know how to position themselves. Stanton is slow but he makes up for it by launching the disc at incredibly fast speeds. Each character is controlled the same, but mastering their individual skills requires a certain degree of specialization and practice.
Thankfully, Disc Jam performs great in docked and handheld mode with a few minor frame skips when super throw animations are playing out.
Serving with Style
Speaking of specialization, Disc Jam features a whole suite of customization options to choose from. You can customize your player icon and title, you can change your character’s skin, taunts, victory poses, and even the disc you throw when serving. All of the customization items are purely cosmetic; no item or skin provides an unfair advantage to a player.
You can unlock these cosmetic items in three ways; buying “Jamoleon” coins from the Nintendo eShop, earning and spending in-game currency on a random prize machine, or receiving tickets from duplicate rewards in order to outright buy items. The random prize machine requires 1000 coins to operate, and on average each match gave me around 200-300 coins. This means you get to unlock a random item after 5 matches or less, which seems like a pretty fair gameplay-to-reward system when considering that matches are usually less than 5 minutes long. For players that want to immediately take a chance at unlocking their favorite skin or taunt, they can purchase Jamoleon coins from the Nintendo eShop to use in the random prize machine. Duplicates are exchanged for tickets, and the number of tickets received depends on the value of the duplicate. Tickets let you outright purchase cosmetic items you have yet to unlock, but the odds of getting high-value duplicate items in order to afford what you want seems pretty slim.
Room For Improvement
Disc Jam’s depth starts to falter when you look at what the rest of the game has to offer. There are only a handful of available play modes and they all feature the same core Disc Jam gameplay. Singles and doubles can be played online, through LAN, and on local split-screen from up to two to four players. LAN and local split-screen are essential components of the Disc Jam experience because the only other single-player mode available other than training is Ghost Arcade. Ghost Arcade has you face an AI opponent made up of an actual player’s skill. This mode essentially brings the online gameplay to offline mode, allowing you to practice against relatively real opponents when you’re on the go. The core Disc Jam gameplay is great, but it can get stale after a few hours. The biggest incentives to keep playing are its new seasonal online ranking system, leaderboard support, and unlocking customization items for your favorite characters. Disc Jam only has one arena, a handful of songs, and a relatively vague futuristic-Tron look. These tiny things contribute to the feeling of sameness that permeates throughout the game.
Final Thoughts
Disc Jam’s high-intensity gameplay is exceptionally polished, making it thrilling to play a match against online opponents or locally against friends. It’s easy to pick up, but mastering the techniques and the special abilities of each character contribute to the depth and polish of the Disc Jam experience.
Unfortunately, the rest of the experience falls a bit flat because of a severe lack of play modes and arenas. High Horse Entertainment is taking good first steps to build upon the solid foundation they currently have by testing out a skill-based online ranking system based on seasonal play. Disc Jam is a good pick-up-and-play multiplayer game that deserves credit for reviving and remixing the gameplay of famous retro titles like Pong and Windjammers. With time and dedicated updates, Disc Jam can grow to be a robust online video game-sports experience. Disc Jam is available now on the Nintendo eShop for $14.99.
Review Copy Provided by Evolve
