Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl

Genre: Arcade Brawler

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl is an Arcade Brawler where players take the role of the titular characters from director Kevin Smith’s “View Askewniverse”, a series of movies, comics, a short-lived animated series, and probably some other forms of media I’m forgetting. The lovable pair of lowlife drug dealers and lazy scoundrels has taken on various roles over the years, and this game starts by seeing them inexplicably “sabotaging” a local game show hosted at their mall, with the rest of the game following them as they try to escape the mall, which is apparently filled with security guards, skateboarders, Mooby’s mascots, and various other characters all looking to beat the snot out of the two.

If the mention of Mooby rung a bell for you, then you are probably in this game’s target audience, as the game was clearly intended for fans of the characters who would delight in catching these references. Otherwise, there’s a good chance that all you’ll get from this presentation is that it is very intentionally designed to look like an 8-Bit Nintendo Entertainment System game, with limited-color pixel art that vaguely resembles the likes of Double Dragon and River City Ransom, and a control scheme apparently designed around being able to play it with two buttons, even using a combination of A+B to jump (or you could just press Y or X, we’re not savages). Anyways, back to the presentation, it’s not terrible, though it doesn’t exactly push any boundaries.

The same can largely be said for the gameplay here. This is for the most part a fairly bog-standard Arcade Brawler. There is some nuance in being able to switch freely between Jay and Silent Bob in single-player mode, giving the other character a chance to catch a breather and refill some health, although players are limited in their ability to do so in a way that isn’t quite made clear. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

There is also some frustration with the less than fantastic hit detection. Some enemies seem capable of dodging attacks as they please, and it’s not really made clear why. What’s more, jumping attacks only hit the first character they touch, which makes it a surefire way to receive damage if you’re fighting multiple enemies, something especially frustrating if you’re facing multiple enemies best fought with aerial attacks.

However, for the most part, Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl is disappointingly tame and doesn’t do anything particularly great or especially terrible when it comes to this genre. It does a decent job of delivering fanservice to Askewniverse fans in a nice retro 8-bit presentation, but beyond that there’s little here to recommend it over other games.

tl;dr – Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl is an Arcade-style Brawler featuring an original story starring Kevin Smith’s famous pair of miscreants. Fans who follow these characters will enjoy the fanservice, and those who enjoy 8-Bit-style retro games may appreciate the presentation, but beyond that there’s little to set this game apart from the crowd.

Grade: C

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