Tak and the Power of Juju

Looking for an innovative platformer to revive your interest? Tak is promising but not the one to do it.

Platformers are starting to mature these days with old-school jump-n-run mechanics giving way to innovations in gameplay like shapeshifting, nonlinear worlds, and the like. Tak and the Power of Juju has at its core a concept that could have taken it away from the typical crop of platform titles, but it doesn?t seem to trust that gimmick enough to truly embrace it.

Sheep Trick
As Tak, you have to help the High Shaman restore Lok, a great Pupanunu hero, to fighting form so he can take out the evil shaman Tlaloc. The game?s story is one of its strong points, but the star concept is the pseudo-strategy gameplay involved in wrangling the indigenous animals across the game?s levels. To complete a goal, you might have to distract an aggressive ram, carry a sheep on your head to sneak past a guard, or get a monkey to toss coconuts at an orangutan. Figuring out the animals? behaviors and how to exploit them is great fun, and it?s a gameplay concept no platformer (save perhaps Eidos?s Herdy Gerdy) has ever used before.

Unfortunately, this cool concept can?t save the rest of the game from mediocrity. While its graphics are nice enough (with some frame rate and camera problems here and there), and its music is cool enough to forgive Tak?s dumb, anachronistic sound bites, the controls just aren?t responsive or solid enough to make for a good platformer. Combat is ridiculously imprecise, and the camera controls make every action an exercise in multitasking. Except for the ecological exercise with the animals, Tak is your average bargain-bin platformer.

Blockbuster Title
Innovation in the platforming genre is a good thing, but it needs a solid gameplay foundation to support it. Tak is good enough for a curious rental, but it?s not really compelling enough to own.

Also on the GameCube

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