Republished on Wednesday, twenty second June, 2022: We’re bringing this overview again from the archives following Leaping Flash!’s inclusion in All PS Plus Video games. The unique textual content follows.
Initially revealed on Sunday, 4th November, 2018: The 16-bit console wars have been cruel. Through the early idea stage of the PlayStation console, Sony took half in an ill-fated collaboration with Nintendo to create a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES. In September 1995, Leaping Flash! was a PS1 launch title, and it is the kind of sport that makes you surprise what would have occurred if Nintendo hadn’t engaged in its notorious double dealing. Revealed by Sony however created by just a little recognized developer known as Actual Inc., Leaping Flash! feels visually just like the pure continuation of video games from the Tremendous Famicom period, however offered by means of 32-bit polygon worlds.
Seen from a first-person perspective, the gameplay in Leaping Flash! nonetheless feels contemporary at this time. You pilot and management a huge robotic rabbit, unsurprisingly named Robbit, throughout 18 phases which are unfold over six worlds. Every degree is a floating island, and there’s a light-headed sense of exhilaration and verticality as Robbit triple jumps upwards, ascending platforms and looking to gather 4 hidden carrot-shaped jetpods. Robbit reaches the dizzying heights of Tremendous Mario Sunshine’s rocket nozzle, however with a larger sense of management, as a result of with every leap Robbit appears downward, permitting you to evaluate the place to land primarily based upon his shadow.
As a really early PS1 sport, Leaping Flash! is not graphically flawless. The sport has primary fashions, and a close-up inspection of environmental textures demonstrates rugged pixelation, plus the framerate is not at all times easy. Nonetheless, there may be an abundance of character in its artwork model and within the theme it presents for every world, even when it re-establishes generic concepts for environments. You could anticipate a lava primarily based stage, however its frying pan egg trampoline will shock you. Elsewhere, the best way the blustery wind redirects Robbit mid-air, whereas traversing clear gem platforms, appears fanciful within the icy blue snowflake degree. The developer shows copious quantities of creativeness, so you will not be capable to guess what’s coming subsequent, whether or not it is floating throughout scorching air balloons beside a fairy story citadel, or driving a wavy rainbow conveyor belt previous a Ferris wheel, throughout a purple pastel skyline.
Particular credit score have to be given to the musical work of Takeo Miratsu, as the best way he has matched becoming tunes to every graphical theme amplifies the character of the sport. The primary stage’s visuals and audio attracts flattering parallels with Klonoa, and completely set the temper for blue skies, with picket fenced windmills and cottages. Miratsu journeys his compositions from historical Egyptian sounding ideas to jaunty jingles. He units an underwater maze part of world 4-2 to creepy music, echoing it with a Jaws impressed coronary heart beat to orchestrate prowling sharks by means of a sunken pirate ship.
You may shortly uncover your favorite observe, however world 5-1 is especially memorable. It has a conventional theme for a metropolis setting in East Asia, which remembers Konami’s robust audio work on The Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Typically a core tune is repeated in its following stage, nevertheless it’s reinvigorated with a quicker and better pitched melody. Even the stage choose display, with wah-wah pedal guitar licks, and the sport over display’s taunting laughter on the participant’s ineptitude, have been included with aptitude and creativity.
The story in Leaping Flash! is as quirky as its presentation. It locations the participant answerable for pest management for the Galactic Municipal Council, so it’s essential to climb into the cockpit of Robbit to cease a mad scientist known as Baron Aloha from attacking six floating worlds. Subsequently, the third stage in every world is a battle in opposition to a weird boss, because the Baron follows in Dr. Robotnik’s footsteps and is simply as ingenious at creating dastardly enemy contraptions. These distinctive encounters embody a fireplace respiration dragon, a claw firing scorpion, and a missile hurling shell tank. Afterward you will confront a reworking dice robotic, and most uncommon of all, a clown genie who pops his head and arms out of rotating tea cups. There are seven bosses in complete, since you should additionally face a doppelgänger of Robbit, earlier than confronting Baron Aloha face-to-face. When you beat every world, you’re handled to a brief amusing cut-scene, the place the Baron’s defeated minions drown their sorrows and grasp their heads in disgrace.
Gameplay predominantly consists of reaching probably the most advantageous excessive level in a stage, and scouring the surroundings to pinpoint the place of 4 jetpods, or a troublesome to achieve exit pad. On this respect, it is much like a Tony Hawk skateboarding sport, though easier controls for Robbit’s triple jumps make traversing every Leaping Flash! stage surprisingly accessible, even when the inclusion of a map would have been a welcome complement to the in-game radar. As a launch PS1 sport, the controls are useful, though the dearth of a DualShock controller in 1995 implies that you progress with the d-pad and use the R1 button as a digicam to look up-and-down. Additionally, you possibly can press down on the d-pad for a fast turnaround, however it could have been helpful if Robbit might flip 180° extra effectively throughout boss fights.
Worlds 2-2 and 4-2 supply a change of fashion to the gameplay, as they’re set in maze-like corridors, and really feel barely like a Japanese arcade tackle a DOOM first-person shooter. It is notable that a number of the builders of Leaping Flash! additionally labored on shoot-’em-ups, together with an earlier Actual Inc. side-scrolling shooter on Sharp X68000 known as Naious. Additionally, Shigeo Maruyama was Government Producer for each Leaping Flash! and the 1995 PSone shmup Philosoma. Subsequently, in Leaping Flash! you collect particular objects that improve your firepower with rockets, cherry bombs, tornado assaults, and laser spewing Roman candles. You’ll be able to maintain three particular objects at one time, and though Robbit can bounce on enemy heads like a conventional platform sport, there may be an added concentrate on taking pictures on this title. There are additional power-ups dotted across the surroundings and dropped by thwarted enemies, which permit for invincibility, or freeze the stage’s time restrict and reward you with further lives. Study every stage totally and you could uncover a hidden ring, which transports Robbit to a bonus stage the place it’s essential to burst all the balloons for an additional life.
Leaping Flash! is a brief sport, which inspires the participant to maintain transferring to remain forward of every stage’s ten minute time restrict. You’ll probably full it in roughly two hours in your first try, however the arcade pacing of this platform title ensures that it’s enjoyable to return to phases for making an attempt a velocity run. Robbit begins every world with three lives, which he loses when his vitality bar reaches zero, after he plummets off the sting of a stage, or when the time restrict runs out. There are limitless continues, and when you attain a stage you possibly can load it from a save slot to replay it everytime you need through the menu choose display, however it’s essential to nonetheless beat every world utilizing your allotted variety of lives. Subsequently, if all your lives are misplaced within the third stage of a world, you will want to return to that world’s first stage another time.
Actual Inc. has added some longevity to Leaping Flash! by together with quite a few attractive secrets and techniques to find. Once you first beat the principle 18 phases within the sport, you unlock an Further mode, the place it’s essential to play by means of all the phases once more with a considerably tighter time restrict and rearranged jetpod placement. It is price mastering the sport and making an attempt to finish it with out utilizing any continues, particularly with a hidden Tremendous mode that empowers Robbit with humongous jumps, double the dimensions of his triple leap, quicker working motion, and a dive-bomb assault.
There are usually not many video games that current the motion from a first-person perspective, however focus upon the platforming style for gameplay. Even alongside the motion journey of Mirror’s Edge, or a puzzle platformer like Quantum Conundrum, Leaping Flash! manages to really feel distinctive, 18 years after its launch. The ultimate important platforming stage, world 6-1, is ready excessive up on precarious scaffolding in outer house, and it is the ever current hazard of big leaps and aiming to land on slim walkways that feels most satisfying on this sport. It is phases like this the place the extent design retains Leaping Flash!’s gameplay contemporary, with a tighter degree of problem, which act for example of how it could be welcome if there was ever a glimmer of hope for an HD replace to Leaping Flash!’s platforming template.
Conclusion
As a first-person platforming sport, with huge triple-jumps, and boss battle shoot-’em-up phases, enjoying Leaping Flash! seems like burrowing down the rabbit gap into a particular and unconventional gameplay expertise. The masterful music compositions by Takeo Miratsu match the colorful and vivid visible themes of every of the six worlds completely, guaranteeing that the presentation in Actual Inc.’s 1995 sport has aged gracefully. Arguably on account of its place among the many PS1’s launch, the principle flaw in Leaping Flash! is its quick completion time. Nonetheless, controlling Robbit feels accessible for such a skyrocketing protagonist, so you’ll hop proper again into every of the 18 phases to dig up secret modes, or to vault your method in the direction of attaining a flashier time assault velocity run.
