Infused with a retro futurism reminiscent of ‘80s sci-fi comic books, Junkster challenges you to escort a plucky little robot affectionately titled UM-13 home after his spaceship crash lands on a hostile planet. Luckily, UM-13 is a mechanic equipped with his handy robo-wrench, which allows it to grab at junk scattered around and use it to construct ways to bypass obstacles.
The comic book theme is entrenched in this game in an incredibly cute way, informing both the aesthetic and the level structure. The menu screen takes the form of a pile of comics, each of which represents one of the 20 levels you can unlock and select. Each time you select one, a cute animation plays of the book opening, during which you see the opening panels of UM-13 being transported to the next planet it needs to traverse.The goal of each level is to safely cross from a start to an end point, collecting cogs along the way and aiming to find an item at the end of the map, either a piece of your trashed ship or an artifact, which is echoed in the collectible toy you can pull off the front of that level’s comic once you complete it, and trigger a portal that takes you to the next level. As a bonus, there is also a sticker hidden somewhere on each level you can unlock. This makes for a cute structure that gives the game a unique aesthetic identity.
The tutorial is very clear and the mechanics are easy to grasp. You can run and jump around the map and use your robo-wrench to gather construction materials. The building mechanics offer some room for creativity in how you approach each puzzle. You can use different objects for the same purpose, so while the function of a bridge or a robot or whatever else you might build will remain the same, your structure can vary greatly. The pacing of the levels is well constructed, beginning with fairly obvious, easy builds in the early levels developing into more complex puzzles as you progress, leaving more freedom to strategise.
At first, you build bridges to cross obstacles, such as pits you can fall into or plants that will poison you. Then you build robots you can climb inside to avoid dangerous territory, or shoot through big blockages. Later there are electric circuits you have to reconstruct to open doors. Finally, you have to combine all three to navigate increasingly complex levels. While the majority of the levels are fun and interesting with engaging puzzles and a good amount of variety throughout, there are a handful that require a suicidal reboot if you fall into the wrong inescapable corner.
The controls could be more intuitive in places. There were certainly instances where what felt like the correct place to click had a wildly different result than expected. It also feels odd that in your inventory management, B is collect and A is close, which is directly opposite to the vast majority of other games. This is an unfortunate gripe that is relatively minor but does add up when the exact controls that feel jarring are required so often.
Despite the comic book aesthetic, there isn’t much of a story to the game at all. You are UM-13 and you need to get home, so you get past the obstacles in your way. There isn’t an emotional hook to the goal of getting home, or even of rebuilding your presumably beloved spaceship. Aside from being cute and resourceful, there isn’t much to UM-13’s personality, which feels like a missed opportunity to bump up the stakes with some simple narrative devices.
Along your journey, you occasionally bump into other stranded automata who you have to help or collaborate with to complete the level. This feels like it could have been an excellent and relatively easy way to incorporate some world building into the game through the existing dialogue. However, this is another missed opportunity as the other characters mostly just give you clues about how to complete the level, rather than offering even the simplest explanation about who they are or how they also ended up stranded on a hostile planet.
Junkster is a fun game, with a decent amount of content and feeling of progression, especially for its price point. Its interesting puzzles are well balanced with a consistent and enjoyable aesthetic, though there are some clear missed opportunities to develop the adventure into a more complete and fleshed-out narrative.
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Source: https://purenintendo.com/review-junkser-nintendo-switch/
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