Jet Kave Adventure

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Castle of Heart + Jet Kave Adventure Bundle, along with Castle of Heart.)

Jet Kave Adventure is a family-friendly Platformer released on Nintendo Switch in 2019, ported to PC and Xbox One in 2021, and ported to PlayStation 4 in 2024. This game puts players in the role of the titular Kave, a caveman recently banished from his village for unknown reasons who shortly thereafter stumbles on a crashed alien spacecraft. Suddenly finding himself outfitted with a jetpack, Kave sets off after the alien… er… for reasons that are unclear… with the alien heading off to the local volcano in search of a replacement rock that I assume the spacecraft requires to work again.

Okay, so story isn’t one of this game’s stronger points. Characters speak using speech bubbles with pictures in them, and apart from a brief voiced opening narration, that’s mostly all we have to go on. However, it’s not like story is the most important element of a Platformer.

Moving on to the rest of the presentation, Jet Kave Adventure is a very nice-looking game, with detailed, colorful 3D visuals with good use of lighting and shadows, backed by a lighthearted soundtrack with a generic “jungle” feel to it, which works well enough given the setting. The visuals are quite good, though – this may not be quite on par with the best-looking Nintendo Switch games, but it’s also not far from those games either. That is, apart from one issue – when things are moving, particularly when they move fast, Jet Kave Adventure’s 30FPS framerates can look a tad blurry. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it definitely hurts an otherwise great presentation.

The gameplay here is pretty good too. I’ve heard this game compared to the Donkey Kong Country series, and I think there’s some merit to that – the level design, in particular, seems to take a page right out of those classic games with secrets hidden throughout the game’s levels, with plenty of variety. However, the way the game controls is something different.

Kave has a standard jump and a club he can use to bash enemies, as well as a crawl and a wall jump that he can use on designated walls. However, soon enough he’ll gain access to other abilities too. He can gather food to refill his health at the press of a button, toss stones to hit distant targets, and when he gets the jetpack he can top off his jumps with a brief hover, as well as making use of a multi-directional dash move. I feel like this game is at its best when it pushes players to chain together multiple jumps, wall-jumps, and air-dashes, making for a fun acrobatic challenge.

When it comes to issues, I think my biggest issue here is the framerate issue I mentioned before, though there is one other frustration I had with this game, and that is the hang gliding levels, which I feel have awkward controls. Thankfully, you don’t encounter these levels too often.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with Jet Kave Adventure. This game isn’t likely to replace Mario or Donkey Kong as the best Platformer on Nintendo Switch in anyone’s eyes, but I feel it’s a solid supplement to those games that fans of the genre should definitely check out, especially when this game goes on sale (which is extremely frequently).

tl;dr – Jet Kave Adventure is a family-friendly Platformer that has players taking the role of a caveman with a jet pack. Beautiful visuals, great level design, and solid Platforming all make this a superb entry in the genre, though I wish the framerates were better and I could do without the hang gliding levels. Despite those issues, I do recommend this game to Platforming fans – it’s a pretty good take on the genre.

Grade: B

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