Jusant Review: Gameplay, Music and Environment Design

After Jusant's release a few months ago, and following our system requirements review (you can find that article here), it's time for our thoughts on the game's gameplay. Worth reminding for anyone curious: Jusant, developed by Dontnod, was warmly received by indie game fans. In this article we bring you our Jusant review, and we hope you enjoy the read...

Jusant Review 2024

What You Want to Know About Jusant's Gameplay!

Jusant delivers a great gameplay experience. Its simple structure, impressive environment design and music earned it top marks from us.

With Guillaume Ferran handling the music, the game gives players a sweet adventure free of tension. The way the in-game music serves the whole is one of the things that makes the roughly 6-hour experience so enjoyable.

What Brought Jusant's Score Down

Before getting into what we liked and disliked about the game, let's start with the parts we didn't like or found ourselves criticizing. The game's decision to focus its whole design on climbing, excluding any form of tension, occasionally led to moments where our engagement dropped.

What Makes Jusant Special: Its Music, Environment Design, In-Game Dynamics

On the positive side, the climbing mechanics and the puzzle-based sections in the game stand out for their quality. Offering multiple ways to overcome the game's challenges significantly smooths over the negatives.

The game's platforming structure is another feature that adds a lot to it. The platforming dynamics grow more intricate in every section; the combination of music, environment design and section-specific variables pushes the in-game rhythm to its highest points. As you climb toward the summit, the game accompanies you with everything it has.

The music, the design, and the variety in gameplay may be the best examples of this.

As for our favorite sections, we'd point to the first and the last. Turning around to look back and see how far you've climbed is probably the best expression of the satisfaction the game delivers.

The music in the game is among the most important elements that give meaning to the beginning and end of the journey. Even though we knock off a small amount for the lack of tension, the fact that this choice serves the game's overall cohesion makes that criticism much quieter. Given its structure, since the game isn't a survival game, it appeals to calm minds or those looking to unwind.

We Didn't Find a Single Element in Jusant That Felt Excessive!

As we near the end of our review, let's talk about Ballast's role in the game. The one thing we'd say about Ballast's role is that it's exactly as significant as it appears to be. This quality keeps the game from either making itself too hard or oversimplifying itself. If we'd seen our helpful companion less, we might have run into some unnecessary difficulty and found it harder to keep our in-game focus; if we'd seen it more, the game would have become overly simple and we might have grown bored more easily. The developers' balanced, well-judged use of this helper element made a positive contribution to the game's gameplay.

Summing up our overall impressions, we can say the game serves its purpose in every way; taking its music, environment design, sections, gameplay dynamics and helper elements into account, we can see that this is a successful piece of work.

Anyone who wants to pick up the game can find it on Steam.