Developer: Rodaja
Publisher: Rodaja
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Unfair Jousting Fair – Review
Have you ever wanted to see who of your friends is best at jousting? Well now you can find out in Unfair Jousting Fair, where you can beat your friends in a joust whilst you try to keep your balance on top of your unicycle. Compete in the ridiculous jousting tournament your mother never let you have. You can now practice your unicycle and lancing skills without fear of your video becoming viral, or breaking any bones for that matter.
Story
Story wise there isn’t any info, the only thing we know is that you get the opportunity to beat your friends in a jousting match on unicycles. Whilst the game could have faired a bit better with a small, yet witty story, it isn’t really necessary to start fighting, as the game is multiplayer only. Still a small intro or something along those lines would have been welcome.
Graphics
Unfair Jousting Fair features a very cartoony kind of style, which is very enjoyable. The character art in this game is quite special, the characters look like they are made out of separate pieces of paper put together. Also, all of the characters are dressed in a very hipster kind of way. The background is also very basic, featuring a few spectators and some shrubs. Nonetheless, the style suits the overall topic and theme of the game. You’ll never truly long for more realistic graphics or even more detailed ones, especially with the movements already being quite fluent as they are.
Sounds
While the music in this game is very catchy and fun to listen to, it can get very annoying. Reason for saying this is because the music is constantly repeating the same tune again and again. Unfair Jousting Fair also features sound effects when the two opponents clash but that’s pretty much it. Again things are kept rather basic, which again suits the game, but ”less is more”, is not always true.
Gameplay
Unfair Jousting Fair is a 2-D jousting game that only supports local multiplayer, meaning that the game cannot be played online. There are rumours that an online mode will be added but for now players will just have to enjoy this game together with friends. It would have been nice if there was a singleplayer mode as well.
At the beginning of each match, players each get to choose one character to play with, all of these characters have the same abilities, so the only difference that the players could be going for are the looks. The controls of the game are quite fairly straight forward, you move left or right to keep your balance on your unicycle. You move up and down to adjust the height of your weapon so that you may strike your opponent on the body part you so desire to hit. But be warned, the controls are very hard to get a handle on.
The goal of the game itself is very simple, you try to hit your opponent with the respectable end of your weapon but while doing this players also have to avoid their opponent’s weapon charging at them. As you play, you will unlock more and more weapons, sadly you don’t get to choose these weapons yourself. At the beginning of every round players will get a random weapon out of the collection of weapons they have already unlocked, player 1 may be playing with a rake while player 2 is playing with a tennis racket. Situations like these can be very amusing some times.
Another fun feature is the fact that you can actually hit your opponent with chickens. This is not the only fun feature. When the head of your character and the head of your opponents character touch each other, they will share an awkward kiss and then bounce back. Overall it are these small gimmicks that add a little extra to the equation.
the more you play the game, the more small items you will start to unlock, ranging from new weapons, obstacles and even new ‘rides’ for you to duel on. What these are, we’ll leave for you to discover on your own (at least for the most part).
Conclusion
While the overall concept and execution of the game isn’t truly bad, it’s never great either. The extreme lack of an online mode or simply a single player (arcade) mode is a severe handicap to this otherwise amusing game. It’s certainly a laugh when you have friends over and you boot up this unicyclist’s wet dream, but if you don’t have any friends nearby and you wish to play a match or two, you’ll be standing out in the cold, with your helmet and unicycle. Other than that, the ‘impossible’ controls are either something you’ll love or hate, especially when you and your friends are equally bad in mastering them. A great game when you have some friends over, but even then only for short periods of time.
Unfair Jousting Fair - Review,
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