80%Virtual Boy

One of the hardest games I've played. It's very cool, but had to optimize the time very often. Would play it again.

75%Virtual Boy

Well, there's a lot to improve but in 1995 if we compare this to a game boy game it is decent.

There's like 10 lines of scenario, but this is a cute Halloween scene. The fairy helping you is a bit annoying because she will often break the rhythm of the progression through the floors.

The music is okay, the enemies are somewhat dumb but the game is punitive enough to reach a frustration point where I felt like randomness was either against or with me.

EDIT: after I have done the other characters' run, I noticed that I began with Frost, the hardest.

The different characters are not too different but have different constraints that the player must make the best use to reach the end.

The hard mode is a good thing, adding even more replayability. I'm not fond of doing again and again games but this was enjoyable.

70%Emulated

A hidden gem amongst the horror show that is the Virtual Boy's library, Jack Bros is surprisingly fun in spite of its flaws. A top-down maze-roamer in which you collect keys to traverse a total of 60 floors is not what I would call the most interesting concept for a game but it works here. The soundtrack isn't anything great, but it's catchy and composed well enough to be enjoyable. I appreciated how you were able to hold your weapon out for as long as you wanted to rather than being required to stop in your tracks and pull it out every time it was needed. Jack Bros is fast-paced, the ideal setup for a game of its kind. However it makes it all the more frustrating when, on nearly every floor, a fairy has to interrupt the gameplay to explain that floor's gimmick to you and there's no way to make her text scroll any faster. Luckily, once you've had her speak to you for that floor, she never shows up for it again which makes repeat attempts of levels more enjoyable Additionally, the bosses were a hit or miss. Some were tough but fair like Vampire and others were pushovers like Lamia and Sinister Scar. However, Spider Orb can go fuck itself due to being designed around wasting your limited time in-game.

Jack Bros isn't perfect, but given its system and the competition it had to go up against, it can sit right below Virtual Boy Wario Land as the second best Virtual Boy game out there.

70%Virtual Boy

Jack Bros was developed and published by Atlus for the Virtual Boy in late 1995. It's a spin-off from Megami Tensei, and was the first MT entry to be released outside Japan. The player takes the role of one of the three Jack brothers – Jack Frost, Jack Lantern, or Jack Skelton (Skelton is best) – who have visited the human world for Halloween, but need to return to the "fairy world" (it's Hell actually) before the portal connecting the two worlds closes. The player guides one of these characters through six areas, which consist of 60 some-odd floors total. Basically you're running around mazes, killing enemies, avoiding traps, and collecting keys to open the gate to the next floor below. Every so often you'll fight a boss, and the boss fights are all great! You have no life bar, instead you have a time total. If you get hit, you lose time, but time ticks down regardless. So you're always in a hurry to get to the end of the level before time runs out. Because if it does, it's game over. (Thankfully you can find time adding power-ups fairly regularly. ) Jack Bros. is very arcade-like, but it has cute graphics and a really great chiptune OST. I thought this was going to be a hard game given its concept, but actually Jack Bros. is a piece of cake. You have continues galore and passwords to save progress. A helper fairy guides you through the first 3/4ths of the game as well. The 3D effects were pretty good too, mostly in being able to see floors below you as you run around above, a nice parallax 3D effect. As long as you go into playing Jack Bros. not expecting anything too deep, you should have a good time racing back to Hell.