JJ & Jeff is a side scrolling platforming game developed by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx16 in 1990. Based off the hit Japanese cartoon series, Kato-chan and Ken-chan, this game strives to entertain the player with crude humor and oddly created NPC enemies. Sadly enough, the game is so hilarious, it makes a mockery of itself with bad game play mechanics and extreme difficulty.

The story puts you in the shoes of two police detectives named JJ & Jeff, both of which are playable at the start of the game. The player must jump through eight short levels in order to solve a murder case. The beginning cut scene was a great anecdote to the game, which easily depicts the game’s humor. It does become a little dry when it actually gets to the platforming because you’ll be highly disappointed on how badly JJ & Jeff controls. Being the typical Maro clone, you must avoid pot holes, deadly animals and rolling hay while trying to make it to the end of the level. And it is not as easy as it sounds.

Don’t mind my frustration, JJ & Jeff is an exceptional platformer, the only thing that diminishes the experience is the awful controls and character mechanics. The main character movement is slippery and short sided. The jump button is very stiff, so you could be standing at a wall and won’t actually jump over it until the game responds to your frustrating button jamming. In response to”slippery, be careful when jumping onto small ledges and walkways because you can easily slide right off into the pit of death. And with only two lives, that doesn’t help much. Speaking of lives, you have life meters which will deplete if you touch an enemy. You can attack them by either kicking them away or using a spray can (it was originally a fart in the Japanese version). None are effective in any way, since the range of your attacks are very limited. All I do is run and dodge enemies, hoping one won’t just run right into me.

Another idiotic move for the level designs are hidden switches to enable platforms in open areas. Players will ultimately fall into a trap by falling into the pits because they are unsure how to reach a platform 20ft away. This hint you’ll hear from me: If you are at a ledge and cannot find anyway across the emptiness, just do a jump kick (in one spot), and a platform will magically appear in front of your eyes. It is completely illogical, but blame the designers of the game.

Last but not least is the visuals, which is JJ & Jeff’s biggest (and possibly only) strength. The colors in each level stand out fantastically, it almost feels as if you are playing the live action version of a comic book. The animation is fluid, so the game runs very smoothly.

JJ & Jeff is a mediocre game with a good design and visual appeal. But the game was watered down terribly with control problems and some questionable parts of the game. The game is pretty decent, and I’ll only advise a purchase if you have great history with the game and/or television show. To everyone else, this humor will become dry very fast.

Overall Score: 5.5/10