A Modern Cult Classic That I Could Only Admire
Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass has been recommended to me many times over the years. It came out in 2018 on PC, and it went just far enough under-the-radar that it must have been labelled as underrated and underplayed. Checking around other websites, the praise was unanimous. It’s Very Positive on Steam, and the reviews are glowing. It’s a great mix for a sleeper, cult hit.
Finally, it’s here on the Xbox, and I’ve had two weeks to enjoy it. But it’s my shame. I look at the reviews and back to the game, and I know I should be relishing it, drinking it down, but I can’t seem to connect with it. The internet’s awash with reviews about how it changed their lives, and the best I can say is that, for two weeks of mine, I admired what it was trying to do. It’s not quite the life-changing reaction I was expecting.
Calling All Earthbound Fans
For those who aren’t hipster enough to know about Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, it’s got some shared DNA with some leftfield RPGs. It looks, feels and plays a lot like the Mother (Earthbound) series, with the mute Jimmy being an almost direct replacement for Ness. It has the same knack for taking a happy, mundane neighbourhood and making it weird, psychedelic and occasionally horrific. But it’s also got the body horror and grotesqueness of OFF, plus the wit of Undertale.
You play as Jimmy, who lives just outside of a town called Smile. It starts innocuously enough, as you head out to get some honey for the family, but soon escalates into biker gangs, The Thing-like body horror and the pulsating mass of the title. Jimmy is mute for most of the game, which allows the other characters to imprint on him and reveal their true, mostly awful natures. Along for the ride are various family members and acquaintances (our favourite being the Jonny Bravo-like Punch Tanaka), who fill out the other three slots in your JRPG team.
We’re very much in RPGMaker territory with Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. It’s familiar 2D sprites on a tilted background, and the combat is – again – very familiar, being turn-based with the combat options including riffs on attacks, specials, blocks and running away. While it might be dressed up with different terminology, this is the same turn-based RPG structure that you will have played multiple times before.
Wishing Away The Combat
The combat is one of my sticking points with Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. It’s not as if you can avoid it: in most zones, random encounters happen every ten seconds or so. It forms a substantial chunk of the playtime. But aside from some neat synergies that come from Jimmy’s ability to shapeshift mid-combat (we’ll go into that more later), it’s all a bit drab. There aren’t any particularly interesting mechanics here: it’s mostly a mass of attacks, buffs, debuffs, heals and attacks-over-time.
This wouldn’t be an issue if combat wasn’t force-fed over the runtime. One of Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass’ best features is its open hub areas, allowing you to explore subregions in the order you fancy. But that comes with a cost: there’s a lot of wandering, looking for puzzles, toy-chests full of collectibles, or the specific location that triggers progression. But that invites an awful lot of combat against – admittedly – inventive-looking characters, and it happened to get under my skin.
The need to grind in later regions, beefing up stats to actually survive against the bosses, meant this feeling was exacerbated even more. There were times that I looked at Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass on my Xbox dashboard and wondered if I could pluck up the enthusiasm to keep going.
Masterclass In Writing
It’s credit to the writing and the unpredictable imagination of its sole developer, Kasey Ozymy, that I was pulled out of this feeling. Sure, I’m not wholly convinced by the decision to open the first five hours of the game with a mute Jimmy and his brash, slightly irritating brother Buck, but push past these moments and there is complex character after complex character. Kasey Ozymy knows how to write for utter sociopaths, and is brilliant at creating scenarios that topple into despair, poignancy and pustules. The ending in particular has Jimmy making realisations that will have you staring emptily into the screen.
It didn’t all land, though. I was surprised to realise that I didn’t find Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass funny at any point, which is something I expected from a game that aimed to be an echo of Mother and Undertale. I think it was aiming for humour, but I’m not sure: the natural tendency was to slip into disgust and absurdism before things got funny. Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass can also be disjointed: there’s very little that pulls from one area to the next. I had the overwhelming sense of a series of skits, like a sketch show, rather than a consistent narrative.
The difficulty is pitched surprisingly high, so don’t feel ashamed to pull it down a notch or two from the game menus if you’re going to attempt all 40 hours of Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. Hardcore RPG players who don’t mind a few hours of grind will be fine, and you can save whenever you want, so a bit of save-scumming never hurt anyone. Life and MP replenishing fountains are less commonplace, and are often in different zones entirely (something that grated when I was backtracking and exploring).
As If By Magic, The Shopkeeper Appeared
Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass may not be inventive within its combat, but it’s got some nice touches to deviate just enough from the norm. Periodically, Jimmy unlocks new shapeshifting forms, and these can be called on in combat as well as within the game world. There’s a sliver of Metroidvania here, as you can push past areas that previously blocked you. Plus it’s just cool to pick your favourite Jimmy – a bear, a goon, a vampire – and take them into battle.
There are some lovely puzzles and minigames, too, which spice up the exploration. They’re never hugely elaborate, as each zone is far smaller – and less branching – than your average Final Fantasy location, but they serve to mix things up and reset the tone. You can pivot into horror, portal-mazes and all manner of other themes.
An Adventure Better Admired Than Loved?
The result is a game that I fiercely admired. Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass’ writing is its shining beacon, lighting up some dark moments and being the main reason I wanted to stumble through to the end. That writing never scaled the peaks of Undertale or OFF for me, but it shares the ability to achieve real emotional payoffs and disgust in equal measure.
What held me back from truly loving Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass was grindy, repetitive combat and a lack of cohesion. I found myself wanting to play around with the proportions: push down the amount of combat here, reduce the need for grinding there, and shift up the breadth of the puzzles. With some pruning of the pulsating mass, I really think I would have loved it more.
But you don’t have to listen to me. There are hundreds of people who love Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass with all of their heart (and guts). They might be the more worthwhile recommendation.
Important Links
A Cult RPG Classic – Jimmy And The Pulsating Mass Creeps Onto Consoles – https://www.thexboxhub.com/a-cult-rpg-classic-jimmy-and-the-pulsating-mass-creeps-onto-consoles/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/jimmy-and-the-pulsating-mass/9n4cg0g81qxj
