Hyper Jam is Action Packed Neon Fun

Do you like the cyberpunk aesthetic? Do you love pumping synth wave music? Do you love beating the crap out of your friends on the television screen? Then Bit Dragon’s new brawler, Hyper Jam, is for you! But what is it and is it something that brings the fun? Let’s discuss!

Hyper Jam is a brawler set in a cyberpunk setting that delivers on the action and the music. There are four playable characters each with their own personality and charm. The main objective? Be the last one standing. An interesting aspect of how the matches are handled is that it is not one and done. You play several matches obtaining points at the end of every fight depending on how many kills you got, how long you stayed alive etc. It is a very competitive system in that you can start off as the leader and then one bad match later you are at the bottom trying to claw your back. It makes the match process much more exciting and seeing the leaderboard light up with points after every round is very exciting.

Let’s get to the coolest part of the game mechanics, the perk system. After every round each player will pick a perk from a pool of random perks, depending on the rank of players. The bottom players get to choose first, the second to the bottom will choose second and so on. These perks range from basic damage increases to setting your enemies on fire when you attack. The perk system really changes up how the battle plays out. Some perks only activate when you are low health so you can get beat up early game but once on the brink of death you can take everyone with ease. It is pretty fun going through the perk draft to see who gets what so you can figure how you want to approach the next fight.

The gameplay itself is solid. Character movement, aiming, and fighting all feel like they’re in a good place. You can tell the devs spent some time here! Whether you are sitting back launching rockets at people or up close slashing threw your opponents, it all feels good. There are no real differences between the characters other than visuals and every character has a dash skill. Let me tell you, dashing away from projectiles and enemy melee attacks is exhilarating. Especially when it comes down to a 1v1 situation. I found myself saving the dash (it’s a semi short cool down) for when I really needed it most and landing the final blow is an intense feeling that get the juices pumping. Hyper Jam also ramps up the tension with a sudden death feature where if there are only two players left after a certain amount of time, the arena will start to close in, forcing players to fight it out.

Visually the game is beautiful. The maps are gorgeous to look at and some of them have hazards and obstacles that alter the gameplay a bit. It makes each fight feel a bit different from the last, keeping things relatively fresh each time you duke it out. Accompanied with the gorgeous environments is the music. The soundtrack for this game is frickin’ incredible. It brings the whole cyberpunk aesthetic together.

I would say the only thing I would love to see that the game doesn’t have is the ability to team up with a friend online. You can play with a friend online against bots or drop into quickplay matches by yourself. I would love to team up with a friend and jump into online matches. But overall, Bit dragon has done a great job creating a unique take on the brawler genre and is definitely a game I can recommend if you are looking for a fun couch co-op game with some online elements. And of course the ability to beat the crap out of your friends on the television.