H1.Jack

Genre: RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

H1.Jack is an RPG released on Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game puts players in the role of a young fledgeling hacker as he’s recruited by a group seeking to take down a malicious hacking organization.

The presentation in this game combines simple 2D character portraits with simple 3D visuals, with the actual hacking represented by abstract 3D objects. This is backed by energetic synthesized music that fits the game’s theme well but isn’t really memorable. I should also note that this game’s story is delivered with some pretty bad spelling and grammar, with characters repeatedly using words like “suspiciouse”.

When it comes to the gameplay, the core premise here is simple, but sound. Each hacking job is represented by a series of battles across multiple nodes in an abstract computer-space. Each node could have any number of these enemies to fight in succession, but the number is unknown to you without spending a bit of cash to “scan” the node, letting players either spend some money to plot the best path, or leave the challenge level up to lade luck.

The battles themselves have you using special attacks with a cooldown against color-coded enemies, with the time in-between spent doing normal attacks in time with a circular meter filling up. It’s a decent mechanic that could potentially keep you engaged with the battling, but unfortunately it doesn’t really sync with the music to make this more of a Music-Rhythm game, and I already noted the music isn’t that great anyway.

However, the real issue here is how repetitive and monotonous this game is. You’re just repeating the same actions over and over again in combat, and outside of combat you only have a few stats to pour your money and experience points into, with none of them truly feeling like they’re giving you any real capacity to customize your character.

As a result, H1.Jack is a game that seems like it has set up a pretty decent foundation but hasn’t built anything worthwhile on that foundation. Instead, you just have a dull, monotonous RPG that you’ll tire of very quickly. You have far too many great options on Nintendo Switch to waste your time on this.

tl;dr – H1.Jack is an RPG where players take the role of a young hacker fighting virtual enemies representing the challenge of hacking into computer systems and viruses. The core premise here has potential, but this game does absolutely nothing with that potential, instead making for a dull, monotonous experience that you’ll quickly tire of. Skip this one.

Grade: C-

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