Jersey Devil

Jersey Devil is a 3D platformer developed by Behaviour Interactive and released for the PlayStation and on PC. As the eponymous protagonist, players must fight, jump and glide their way through 6 large worlds, collecting key items and defeating enemies, with the main objective being to stop the evil Dr Knarf, who is trying to take over the city and defeat the Jersey Devil with his army of mutated vegetables.

Gameplay

The objective of the 6 large levels of the game are to collect 5 letters spelling K-N-A-R-F to unlock more areas of the game, often requiring you to complete certain objectives to obtain them. You have a spin attack and a punch, making the combat feel sort of like Crash Bandicoot, although you can only perform the spin attack while jumping. You also have a bat-like ability to glide your way to certain platforms. There are also nitro boxes you'll be smashing to increase your nitro power, which can unlock bonus levels. The game was known for its relentless difficulty and overpowered enemies. Not to mention the loss of a life whenever falling off of a platform; which was very frequent, while finding or gaining new lives was not. Jersey Devil had many things to collect throughout the game as well. Along with the letters for K-N-A-R-F, there were pumpkins and hostages. Hostages would be found in cages throughout many of the stages and would be have to be released to "collect" them. Pumpkins were plentiful and every hundred would grant an extra life to the character.

Jersey Devil did feature different environments spanning museums, graveyards, forests, sewers, and even chemical plants. Each environment hosted different enemies and usually a different play style to combat them effectively.

Reception

The gameplay was heavily inspired by other 3D platformers of the time however Jersey Devil did not perform as well commercially as similar games like Crash Bandicoot and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, and there is now considered something of a rare game to find. It can be found for prices reaching up to its original release price of fifty dollars currently.

Upon release it received average reviews, with critics citing the steep difficulty curve and poor story as the games major drawbacks, however the orchestral score written by Gilles Leveille was heavily praised as one of the games strongest points.