Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch Review – Review
Licensed beat-’em-ups have had a modern renaissance over the last few years, with the likes of Marvel, Power Rangers, and soon He-Man joining the fray alongside the countless retro re-releases. Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch stands out among them because one of the characters says the F word a lot. There’s more to it than just that, fortunately. Chronic Blunt Punch also has vibrantly gorgeous animation and a heavy focus on fighting game-esque combos. For folks who aren’t adjacent to Gen Xers or New Jersey, Jay and Silent Bob are the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of R-rated comedies from writer/director/podcaster Kevin Smith. The pot-dealing duo are breaking in 4/20 this year with a video game that is flashy and fun, but lacking a little bit in the details.
Whether you play it by yourself or with a friend, Jay and Silent Bob are always on the screen. In solo play, you can swap between the two characters. They both have their own attacks and combos, following a similar pattern of mixing light and heavy attacks with a handful of directional buttons. The combat is fluid and engaging, even if it seems to hit a ceiling quickly. It evolves over the course of the game primarily from the various assist characters you find in the game, including the famous clerks Dante and Randal, Catholic icon Buddy Christ, and even more esoteric specific references to other characters and movies in Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse. The assists can be brought in to do a powerful attack after a meter is filled up during gameplay. Another meter is there for a special attack for each of the playable stoners. It has two levels: deploy it at the first for a relatively vanilla special attack or delay your gratification to have Jay and Bob briefly turn into their superhero alter-egos Bluntman and Chronic. If you’re unfamiliar with Kevin Smith’s world, that last sentence is probably the most bizarre one.
The most baffling thing in Chronic Blunt Punch is the obscured level-up system. As you play the game, Jay and Silent Bob get more health, strength, and even attacks but you only are told this when a box appears on screen that says they leveled up and got a new thing. I scoured every menu in the game to see some level-up list or experience point meter and found nothing. At first, I thought it was cool the characters had some persistence over the linear game, but it’s a mystery as to what the level ups add. The game isn’t so difficult that you need to grind or anything. Health power-ups are doled out often enough and you can revive the other character when they’re defeated. The only difficulty issue that crops up is that some of the levels are 10 to 20 minutes long, so dying at the end of a tough boss is frustrating because you have to restart the entire level.
An important part of the overall game is how it’s jam-packed with deep, clever references to all Jay and Silent Bob-related media. As someone who grew up watching these movies in suburban New Jersey, I ate all of the references up. Having that joy balanced with the gameplay made me realize what Chronic Blunt Punch most resembles. This is basically the two Spider-Man and Venom beat-’em-ups (most recently seen in Marvel MaXimum Collection) Maximum Carnage and Separation Anxiety in the modern era. Part of the joy of all three of these games is seeing the likes of the Gologothan or Shriek show up as boss fights. It’s rough for those who don’t know what any of this means, but the brawler gameplay is still enjoyable enough.
It’s somewhat wild to me that Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch is basically the arcade version of the 2020 pseudo-NES release of Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl. They feel incredibly similar in that they’re both totally fine beat-’em-ups that are good enough to stand on their own but work best with a familiarity for the characters and worlds. With a sea of brawlers out there, this isn’t one of the best ones, but it’s the only one that will offer you chocolate-covered pretzels after going to the bathroom. Snoogans.
