Nowadays gamers are well informed enough to know about a game prior to its release. In the days before the internet you relied on magazines or the box art to inform your purchasing decisions. Sometimes you would end up with a Mega Man, a game whose atrocious cover art hid the classic game underneath. Other times you had something like Jewel Master that tells you nothing about the game itself. It would be easy to dismiss Jewel Master as a generic Rastan rip off. But once you’ve spent a little time with it you’ll find a game with cool ideas. But for all its cool ideas the game surrounding them isn’t as good as it should be.
The land of Mythgard was once a peaceful and prosperous place. That came to a halt with the coming of the demon king Jardine. Twelve masters of the elements came together to defeat him but failed in the attempt. Of the twelve only four survived. With their imminent demise the four contained their souls in twelve rings in the hope that one day someone would use their power to succeed where they failed.
Jewel Master was released in 1991, before Sonic the Hedgehog. I mention that for a reason. The blue hedgehog practically reinvented Sega and the projects that came in the following years were some of the best of the 16-bit era. Jewel Master is a relic from before that period, where Sega would try new ideas but did not put much money behind them. The gameplay in Jewel Master is at times brilliant; too bad the game surrounding it doesn’t match it.
The very heart of Jewel Master is its ring system. There are no power-ups aside from life restoring items. Your only means of offense is magic powered by your rings. You can equip one or two rings per hand with each possessing its own action button. The rings correspond to the four primary elements: Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire. Each ring possesses a particular attribute. Wind rings raise your attributes such as speed or jumping power while water creates a barrier. I used rings for a reason. There are three rings per element of increasing power. The real fun of the ring system is creating combinations for different effects.
Playing around with the rings and their different effects is where the most fun lies. There are thirty six combinations total and some are wildly different. New rings are introduced regularly. In most stages you’ll find at least three. Once found you’ll scramble to see what new spells have opened up. The default fire spell suffers from short range and power. Within the first few minutes you’ll get a wind ring which when combined with the water ring creates a wave spell. By the middle of stage two you’ll earn a more powerful fire ring and earth ring, creating two strong spells that can carry you through the rest of the game. The utility spells such as high jump and double jump also see their uses. You can’t combine freely however; opposing rings produce no effect. Everyone will settle on a different favorite which is what makes this system great.
Now if only the rest of the game were as great. In a perfect world Jewel Master would have creative level design that encourages experimentation with ring combos. In certain instances it does, offering alternate paths if you choose to use the double jump for instance. But these circumstances are rare. For the most part the level design is straightforward and not terribly interesting. The stiff controls don’t help matters either. Once you’ve found a particularly strong combo you will more than likely stick with it the entire game. It trivializes the game outside the boss battles, which feature a significant difficulty spike. If the stages were halfway interesting this could have been special.
It is also an ugly game which does not help. The animation is stiff as a board and very robotic. The drab color palette does its novel best to avoid generating any excitement. Enemies tend to blend into the background at times and I simply found the world uninteresting. The boss battles are the only visual highlight in an uninspired package.
In Closing
Jewel Master isn’t a bad game but could have been so much more. I feel guilty for saying it but I wish the ring system were used in a better game. There are too many better action games on the system to recommend this. It falls pretty far down on the priority list if you ask me.
