Cult Jump

Overview

Cult Jump is an adventure trivia game developed by Sun L and published by Bandai Co. for the Game Boy handheld. It was only released in Japan and features various Weekly Shonen Jump characters like: Taluluto; Son Goku; Kujo Jotaro; Kenshiro; Taison Maeda; Ryotsu Kankichi; Momotaro Tsurugi; among many others from seven different animes.

Story

The king of the JUMP world was imprisoned in a castle far away! It's up to you, the reader of Shonen Jump, to use all of your knowledge of their published works to beat your opponents and rescue the king.

Gameplay

The game begins with the main character having to climb to the plateau of the castle. The climb consists of five stages (floors) and once up there, he is faced with four towers.

It is possbile to choose any of the towers to start with, each of which presents the same difficulty level. Each tower consists of ten stages, each of them with a boss at the end. The tower will be destroyed once the boss from the last stage has been defeated. After destroying the four towers the player's character has to go down a passageway that opens in the center plateau. Thereafter the descent is made of five stages until a last boss is encountered.

Altogether there are 50 long stages where the player needs to answer the questions posed by the opponents to survive and move on. A password will be displayed after beating each of these stages.

The drive system is very simple, like the other Game Boy RPGs. Each stage consists of several rooms, and in order to move through them, the player must answer correctly the question asked by the door (which has "half heart" so it can be considered as an opponent like others). In each of these rooms it may or may not have an opponent or multiple opponents. These includes: birds, flying boxing gloves, skaters, surfers, a moving hand lifting a weight, octopuses, robots, among other weird creatures. These opponents are remarkably different during the game, each of them behaves in a different way, with different drive system. Some are very slow while others are fast. And for example, some of them chase the character, while others only move horizontally and/or vertically. Most of the time, it is possible to avoid them by making some specific movements. The strength of each of them (amount of life) also varies, they become increasingly stronger as the game progresses, however the system of questions don't vary. A question is always written with alternatives to be answered within a short period of time. Responding properly, a "half heart" damage is given to your opponent, and if the answer is wrong, the player's character will suffer the "half heart" injury. Clearing all the hearts of the opponent will defeat them (sometimes a heart is even "dropped" by them once defeated), and the opposite is true for the player's character, sending the player back to the early stage. When starting the stage again, the doors that were previously opened will remain open.

Bosses

The only variation in the system of questions happens when the player faces the stage boss, as his last questions are accompanied by the images of some of the characters who appeared in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump. These images will appear and it is necessary to answer questions like: "This character belongs to which manga?". They form in few different ways, appearing "point by point", appearing in "bands", appearing in the midst of a "wave" that moves the image, or appears only in a small circle which is moving over the image. The player must answer the question correctly within the given time. Hitting or missing, the image appears immediately and is necessary to answer the next question. It is only here, during the questions of the stage bosses, that we can glimpse the Dragon Ball characters appearing in the game, of which there are ten: Goku, Vegeta, Krillin, Piccolo, Master Roshi, King Kai, Android 18, Dr. Gero, Frieza and Cell.

Stages

Regarding the stages just a few things worth noting: Some of them contain passages blocked and unblocking them is essential to end the stage. A button must be found that causes an "earthquake" that releases the passages. In about two stages there is no such button, but there is a room with ideograms on the ground and each one makes a different musical note. Then the player needs to be aware because in a room reasonably close you are faced with a "friend" who's gonna pass the correct order of ideograms (the music being played). Draw these ideograms to not forget and once in the room with the ideograms on the ground, it is necessary to pass over them in the correct order. Once done the right combination, the "earthquake" will unlock the passages. There are also some secret passages, but there are so few that are not even worth commenting on them, even more that these passages do not have anything essential to end the stage.

Items

During the game, the player also come across with many "treasure chests" and in every one of these chests, your character acquires one of the eight objects that the game contains. Objects are not cumulative, so if you are "lucky" to find a chest with an object that you already have, you are unable to pick up the object until you spend yours. These objects have different utilities and each has its own characteristics. Remember that they can be used together.

These are:

• Happy Star

By using it, your character gets an invincibility that allows to automatically eliminate any opponent without having to answer your questions. The effect is temporary and is useless against bosses.

• Hook

Once inside some of the towers, the hook allows to exit the tower and return to the center of the field with all four towers. In short, if you do not know how to finish a stage (or simply want to search another item in another tower), you can use this trick to think again or try another tower. It does not work if used during the "up" and "descent" of the castle.

• Pump -1

Once chosen, in all questions that will follow the course of a stage, it automatically eliminates one of the wrong options.

• Magic Potion

Recovers life "fueling" hearts.

• Alarm

Once chosen, it makes your character has twice the time to answer the questions that will follow during a phase.

• Sword Of Fire

Doubles the power of your attack against an opponent, to correctly answer a question. Once selected, it is used in all the questions that will follow during a phase.

• Map

Not renewable. You have to find one at each stage as your character starts the game without a map. The black square indicates where your character is, the gray indicates the areas that have already been visited and the white indicates somewhere unknown.

• Ball 2

Allows you to click on any alternative of a quiz, if the alternative chosen is wrong, it will make "PUF" and your character does not lose HP. The other alternatives remain, and if you miss again, then your character takes damage. Once chosen, it is used in all the questions that will follow during a phase.

To use such objects, the player needs access to their screen. At the top is seen the objects that your character has, and moving the cursor over them we have an explanation at the bottom right of what he does. At the bottom left we have in order: the name chosen, the HP of your character and the stage that is being explored.

Trivia

In the same year, Bandai published a similar game for the Game Boy, entitled Cult Master: Ultraman ni Miserarete.