Captain Velvet Meteor: Jump+ Dimensions Is A Switch Shooting Star

What a time to be alive; feels like only yesterday that weebs were campaigning for Katamari Damacy to receive a domestic release, opening the floodgates for companies to release gems like Captain Velvet Meteor: Jump+ Dimensions. 

For simplicity’s sake I will be referring to this title as Captain Velvet going forward.

This game’s story starts with our hero, Damien aka the titular protagonist Captain Velvet Meteor. Damien, who is of French-Japanese descent, has his life uprooted when his family ends up moving from France to his recently deceased grandfather’s house in Japan. Damien, through the power of his imagination, teams up with a character from Shueisha’s secondary manga anthology Jump+ to face his emotional struggles of beginning a new life in the land of the rising sun.

Captain Velvet is a grid based tactical JRPG that has some fascinating aspects to it.

The gameplay is deceptively simplistic with just the right amount of challenge to keep the players engaged; the player moves throughout the field in 4-8 moves depending on meeting certain conditions.

And the combat system is not overly complicated with a multitude of menus for attacks and items. Field positioning and timing are your greatest resources in battle. You can perform powerful attacks in tandem with one Jump+ character on the field, but throughout combat you fight in teams of two: as Captain Velvet and one Jump+ hero. Even if you’re not familiar with the manga many of the heroes are drawn from, you’ll probably recognize one from its anime adaptation — Loid Forger from SpyXFamily.

While the gameplay is solid, I found myself getting annoyed by the movement controls, which required something of a learning curve. I would occasionally have to backtrack so that I could pull off a successful strategic attack. I wasn’t a game breaker, but I didn’t care for it.

The game’s visuals are different from what other games using Shueisha’s IPs have used in the past. The non-manga designs go for a style that is not commonly associated with the medium. The character and setting designs give off the vibe of a child’s limitless imagination, from locations to in-game enemies.

The game’s soundtrack is a huge part of the immersion into the game, the battle themes are fun and well composed.

The writing is the real hero here. Not since Celeste have I seen a more relatable mental health-based narrative. I have often retreated to my own imagination in order to cope with the un-ending stressors of existence, both as a child and an adult. This game is basically telling the player that it’s okay to not be okay, and that no one is alone even if it feels that way; given Japanese society’s approach to mental health, I found this very refreshing.

Captain Velvet is a game with a lot to say, and I certainly think it’s a top contender for Game of the Year but it’s far from perfect and not for everyone.

So, if you have a Nintendo switch and like weird fun JRPGs, give it a try.

I give Captain Velvet Meteor: Jump+ Dimensions (Momo-pi Game Studio, Shueisha Inc.; rated E) a 4 out of 5.