Jump the Track Review
Start a revolution in Jump the Track, a visual novel with an awkwardly shoehorned pachinko game.
Jump the Track. Seed by Seed
Jump the Track, developed by Seed by Seed, is an unusual combination of genres—it’s a pachinko game and a visual novel. While the graphic novel is a fun story featuring interesting characters and an unexpectedly strong message, the pachinko portion feels like a distraction that’s only tangentially related thematically.
Jump the Track. Seed by Seed
The city where the game takes place is heavily stratified. In the recent past, the upper class flooded a valley neighborhood to create a moat and an island enclave only accessible by a bridge. Sam is a poor but ambitious young man, hustling side gigs while working for a wealthy businessman with ties to organized crime. On the night of the town festival, Sam ruins his boss’s daughter’s favorite—and rare—doll, and becomes desperate to win the festival raffle to replace the item before his boss finds out. This sends Sam all over the city as he frantically pulls every string at his disposal to obtain as many tickets as possible to boost his chances. What follows is a story about social injustice and societal upheaval.
Jump the Track. Seed by Seed
While some of the dialogue is a bit awkward, the overall quality of the writing is good. The characters are unique and endearing, and you root for them as they struggle against the unjust world they occupy. I also appreciated the game’s art during the visual novel portions. The vibrant, stylized character designs contrast starkly with the incredibly bland look of the pachinko game.
Whenever Sam must choose what to say, the game throws you into a pachinko minigame, where your objective is to destroy the pins representing different kinds of answers—diplomatic, seductive, passionate, etc. If you fail to earn any of the answers, you’re left with only a single, default dialogue choice that might not net you the best result. You also sometimes play pachinko for some skill checks, where you must get a score past a minimum threshold to succeed.
The pachinko board designs can get complex, but I very rarely failed any of them completely. You have a limited number of balls you can drop, with a chance to get an extra ball if it falls into a moving bucket at the bottom of the screen. Most boards have a bonus pin that will activate a special power of your choice. These can be multiballs, balls that slice through pins, and more; you earn new powers as you meet and befriend more people in the story.
Jump the Track. Seed by Seed
The pachinko is fun but not particularly novel. In the context of a visual novel, it was too distracting and detracted from the experience. It was frustrating to miss out on choices when I botched a pachinko level, especially when the pachinko game itself wasn’t particularly compelling. I should only be limited by my previous decisions in the story, by paths I didn’t choose to take. Jump the Track would have been a stronger game if it had focused solely on its visual novel side.
Jump the Track is available now on Steam.
Overall Score: 6/10
Played on: Steam Deck
