Jim Power 2 – The Lost Dimension Collection Review

Jim Power 2 – The Lost Dimension Collection Review…

Most of you probably remember my true love for Jim Power on the Amiga 500. It’s a real classic in my eyes, and while the 2022 CD32 version by PIKO was far from optimal — and, quite frankly, a major letdown — it still managed to sneak its way into my memory thanks to some of the better things it did.

The crazy thing, though, is that Jim Power sort of had a sequel…

Well, not really a sequel in the traditional sense. This game is basically a console take on the Amiga original, except they somehow managed to take a perfectly good game and mess around with it by adding a bunch of new stuff…

And as we all know, new doesn’t necessarily mean better.

Jim Power – The Lost Dimension…

Just looking at this picture shows the identity crisis our hero went through during the ’90s.

The original character was loosely based on the cover of the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport, with pretty much the only major change being the hero’s head — and yeah, the background too, of course…

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this new artwork. In fact, it looks pretty good. My question is simply: why change such iconic cover art — and even the in-game graphics — if you’re planning to copy and paste almost everything else from the original game anyway?

If you’re going to change it, change it. If you’re going to keep it, keep it.

Instead, poor Jim ended up looking like he wasn’t entirely sure who he was supposed to be anymore…

The Intro, Back To The Origins…

Here you can see a few pictures from the intro, and pay particular attention to picture number two. Yep, that’s the original Jim Power artwork!

It’s crazy how they managed to mess around with his look so much, and I somewhat suspect the SNES hardware had something to do with it. Maybe the artist simply decided to take advantage of the hardware and give Jim a new look — more colours, a bigger character, more detail, bla bla bla…

Whatever the reason, it still feels strange when the original artwork was already so iconic.

The intro itself, though, is superb quality. It looks fantastic, and it’s actually one of those intros I could happily sit through and rewatch quite a few times.

8-bit & 16-bit Versions Of Jim Power?…

The collection contains two different versions of Jim Power: a totally new NES game and a 16-bit version, which is most likely based on the unreleased SEGA Mega Drive version.

Oddly enough, there’s no information on either the PlayStation Store or QUByte’s website explaining exactly which version this actually is…

What I do know, though, is that this is NOT the SNES version, as that release featured some rather strange parallax scrolling that was designed to work with 3D glasses.

So, unless I’m missing something here, all signs point towards this being the previously unreleased Mega Drive version — but why they don’t actually tell us that is anyone’s guess…

8-bit NES Wonder…

The brand-new NES version was built from scratch by PIKO, the same guys behind the Commodore Amiga CD32 version, and I have to admit that this is actually a pretty damn good game.

It feels like a mixture of both the old and the newer Jim Power games, while also throwing in a few completely new bits of its own. It works surprisingly well and still manages to feel like Jim Power.

One of the biggest surprises for me has to be the excellent rendition of Chris Huelsbeck’s original Amiga music. I honestly never expected it to sound this good on the NES, especially considering its sound hardware is nowhere near the legendary SID chip in the Commodore 64 or Paula in the Amiga.

The gameplay is fluid throughout, with only the occasional flickering sprite here and there. I haven’t noticed a single frame drop so far, and everything generally feels responsive and polished.

All in all, this is a really impressive new NES game, and certainly much better than I expected going into it.

The 16-bit Version…

The Amiga version is nowhere to be seen, which I guess was to be expected since this is somewhat of a sequel rather than a straight port of the original.

Still, it hurts my soul to see just how much worse this game looks compared to the Amiga original.

Yes, it plays somewhat similarly, and several of the levels and locations will immediately feel very familiar to anyone who played the original. The problem is that visually it’s a complete mess at times.

Everything looks grainy and unclear, and the combination of the busy backgrounds, colours and parallax scrolling turns the screen into absolute chaos. Enemies and platforms can almost disappear into the scenery, making it much harder to read what’s actually going on.

And remember, this is without that horrible SNES 3D scrolling effect…

The original Amiga game looked clean, colourful and easy to read. This version somehow takes many of those familiar locations and turns them into visual noise — and for someone who absolutely loves the Amiga original, that’s painful to see.

The Verdict…

I really want QUByte to go back and redo this one using the Thunder Hoop emulation engine, because what we have here simply looks far too low-resolution, and the included filters only seem to make matters worse.

Is it because of the original assets? Is it down to the platform they’re emulating? Who knows, but I’m 100% convinced this could have been done much better.

Overall, it’s the brand-new NES version that rescues this two-game compilation. It’s genuinely impressive and was easily the biggest surprise for me. The 16-bit version, on the other hand, is certainly playable, but the whole thing feels rushed and undercooked.

It also doesn’t help that many of the features we’ve come to expect from modern retro collections are nowhere to be seen — including features found in QUByte’s own previous releases.

There is one nice bonus, though: the Trophy list is actually pretty good, and yes, there’s a Platinum Trophy waiting for those who want to go all the way.

One final thing worth mentioning is that there’s also a physical PS4 version from Strictly Limited still floating around out there. Only 1,000 copies were produced, so if physical releases are your thing and you want this one in your collection, you might want to grab a copy while you still can.

For me, the NES game is the star of the show here. Without it, this would have been a much harder compilation to recommend. With it, there’s at least a genuinely good and surprisingly polished new Jim Power game to enjoy — I just wish the 16-bit half of the package had received the same amount of love.

” Should You Buy It? – Maybe, I had to buy it because it’s Jim Power “.