4/5 ★ – exxwhyzed's review of Jazzpunk: Director's Cut.

Jazzpunk is weird. It's a short experience that's packed with dry humor, clever references, and absurd situations. The humor in this game is likely very polarizing, but it hits for me in the way that gives me consistent amusement rather than bursts of over the top hilarity. The game refuses to take itself seriously, and takes giant steps to be a parody of every cold-war-ish spy thriller ever made, from the premise, to the twist, and right down to the main antagonist's mannerisms and eventual downfall. Gameplay wise this game belongs to a group of games that's one step evolved from the point and click games of times long past, in which the loop involves interacting with literally everything in order to achieve your goal. There's a lot of extra fluff here that adds to the charm of the game. Every optional interactable pushed me to interact with every single item in the open world just to see what would happen, and that's exactly what these kind of games are supposed to accomplish. That said, there isn't much reason to revisit this game more than once to get the 100% completion, which doesn't appear to be that difficult. If you're thorough your first time around, you'd likely manage to find most of what the game has to offer (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!) and then have a few niche things left to do, and all of those leftover bits are outlined for you in the achievements list (or somewhere online). Thankfully there's a chapter select option past the end of the game, so retreading ground is not too much of a hassle. Lastly, I'm a fan of the music in the game. The way it's implemented is a bit... jarring at first, but I think I got used to it halfway through. Jazzpunk is a fun, quick 2 hour playthrough that will tickle your funny bone if you're into dry, absurdist humor or parodies of spy thrillers. A solid "play through once or twice" kind of game that hits the spot just well enough.