Jamestown - Steampunk & pixels

HAZ CLIC AQUÍ PARA LEER ESTA ENTRADA EN ESPAÑOL.

Hello everyone! Here I am ready to talk to you about another of those games who still couldn´t make it into the mainstream in spite of the quality that it contains in all and each of its pixels. I´m talking about Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony. Do you like the classic shooters from the arcades, specially maniac shooters as the classics from legendary Japanese game developer Cave? You know, games such as DoDonPachi, Mushihime-Sama, Espgaluda or Ibara in which you have to dodge wave after wave of bullets, making them ideal for some serious Jedi training (and not recommended for epileptic people). If the answer is yes, then continue reading, for Jamestown is your game. If the answer is no... keep reading anyways, who knows, you might end up liking it!

Stages boast a huge ammount of detail.

One of the game´s bosses.

Developed by indie developer Final Form Games, Jamestown is a vertical scroll maniac shooter that follows the style of the classics I mentioned before to offer us an intense and thrilling experience ideal for all those lovers of good old classic arcade games. Let´s start by the story. Yeah, I know the story is usually not the most interesting part of this kind of game, and Jamestown is no exception, but I have to admit that the developing team did try their very best to offer a pretty unique story setting. The year is 1.619. Our protagonist, Raleigh, has been sentenced to death by the king of England for a crime he didn´t commit, so he has decided to escape and prove his innocence by going to Mars and helping to protect the colony the English empire has in the Red Planet from no less than the Spanish conquistadors and their alien allies... And then they say Japanese stories are crazy (and they are)... Yeah, yeah, you read well. 1.619. English Empire. Spanish Empire. Mars and aliens. And yeah, I took my medicine. This setting will be the starting point for a steampunk adventure that will take us around the Red Planet in our fight against the Spanish conquerors and their extraterrestrial allies. What do you think so far? Good? If not, well, don´t worry, for Jamestown´s story is probably the weakest part of the game.

Use the force, young padawan!

Multiplayer of up to 4 players.

The next aspect that deserves a special mention is the game´s wrapping, or what it’s the same, it´s graphics. The best way to describe Jamestown is like a pixilated piece of art, for as soon as the game starts you can appreciate the enormous effort that this small steam has dedicated to the pixel art of the game, reminiscent of the old arcade games, with sprites and animations that boast all kind of details filling up the screen with life and color, making this game a real eye candy for all those pixel lovers like me. But no game can be complete just by boasting good graphics, it needs also a gameplay style that keeps the players coming for more, and you can be sure Jamestown also does that, it indeed does it really well, delivering a rock solid gameplay system that will satisfy even the most experienced players of the genre. As every good respectable shooter out there, Jamestown has its own unique gameplay element that helps to set itself apart from the rest, in this case with shield system called Vaunt. To use this shield, we will have to pick up the coins that will appear after we destroy the enemies to fill up a small gauge that will appear at the top of the screen. Once this gauge is full, we will be able to active the Vaunt, which will consist of two phases: a first phase in which a shield will active to protect us from all the enemy attacks for a few seconds, and a second phase that will allow us to inflict a 50% more damage and double our score during the time this second phase lasts, being able to extend this second phase indefinitely as long as we keep collecting coins from the enemies we destroy, which of course won´t be easy at all. Mastering this interesting system won´t be just necessary to survive in extreme situations, specially in the higher difficulty levels, but also will allow us to compete for the best scores, which is always one of the main points of most shooters.


Jamestown includes 3 different game modes: story, gauntlet and challenge. In the Story Mode we will play the different stages of the game while the story is narrated between stage and stage using illustrated scenes. The game has 5 stages in the PC version and 7 in the PS4 version. This is due to the fact that there is a 4 years difference between both versions, time in which the developers added a series of extra features to the PS4 version, hence the name Jamestown + on the Sony platform version. The stages are:


Chapter 1: War Upon The East Frontier (PC y PS4) 

Chapter 2: Journey Through the Dark Sector (PC y PS4) 

Chapter 3: Prisoner of the Badlands (PC y PS4) 

Chapter 4: Secret Mines of New Madrid (PC y PS4)

Chapter 5: The Lost Temple of Croatoa (PC y PS4)

Chapters 6 & 7: These two extra episodes will narrate a parallel story involving John Smith (no Pocahontas, sorry Disney fans) in the moons of Mars. (ONLY PS4)


Jamestown, as most of the shumps out there, isn´t particularly long, being perfectly possible to finish the whole game in just one sit for the most experienced players in the genre, which makes sense if you think of the arcade nature of the game, but on contrary to what happens in other shumps, some stages will require us to fulfill first certain requirements before being able to play then, for the Story Mode of Jamestown will allow us to play each of the stages individually in a different difficulty level, being able to choose among the difficulty levels Normal, Hard, Legendary, Divine and Judgment Day, this last one available to purchase in the in-game shop. Like this we have that, although chapters one and two will be available to be played in any difficulty level, the third chapter will require us to complete the first two chapters in Hard difficult mode or higher in order to be able to unlock it and play it, while chapters four and five won´t be available till we haven´t complete first all the previous chapters in the Legendary difficulty mode or higher. This, on top of offering a good challenged for the players, for the higher difficulty levels will be indeed difficult, helps to expand the duration of the game. To complete each of the stages we will have 3 “continues” with 3 lives each, offering us a total of 9 lives to complete each of the stages, with the count reseating every time we start a new stage.

PC version stage select map

PS4 version stage select map

On top of the Story Mode, there are also the above mentioned Gauntlet Mode and Challenge Mode. In the Gauntlet Mode we will basically have to complete several stages on a row just like we could see in all the classic shumps from the arcades, for which we will have 3 continues of 3 lives each, being unable to continue once we run out of continues. In the Challenge Mode, as the name indicates, we will have to face a series of challenges. As we complete challenges, new ones will become available in the in-game shop for us to buy with the ducats (in-game coin) that we will obtain after completing each stage. There´s 3 kinds of challenges:


- Survival: We will have to survive to an insane rain of projectiles during a set amount of time in order to complete the challenge.

- Rings: We will have to fly through a series of rings scattered across the stages while we fight the enemies that will try to destroy us.

- Score: We will have to reach a minimum score to complete the challenge, which will force us to make the most out of the enemies we destroy.


In order to play all these modes, we will be able to choose from a wide variety of ships and weapons, some of which will only be available in the PS4 version. While some will be available from the beginning, other will have to be unlocked by purchasing them in the in-game shop using the ducats we obtained playing the stages. Another feature that helps Jamestown to set itself apart from many other shumps is the possibility of being able to play multiplayer matches with up to 4 players at a time, although the negative point of this is that we will only be able to play local. It is indeed strange in these times of “online multiplayer”, maybe the team wanted to respect as much as possible the “side by side” spirit of the arcades that this game so well represents, but is a handicap that is very well compensated by the many other great features of this little jewel of classic gaming.

You will be able to select several types of ships and attacks.

Anyway, as you all can see Jamestown is a quite complete game that will surely satisfy the hardcore fans of the genre. If you can, perhaps it’s a good idea to purchase the PS4 version available now on the Playstion Store since this version includes a series of extras like 2 extra levels, more ships and some other stuff, if not, you can always get the original version available for PC in Steam while we wait (and hope) for Final Form Games guys to release the “extended version” of Jamestown also on PC. Well, it´s time to hone those Jedi reflexes!


GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lI3EmLSTg4