Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass Review (Switch eShop)

Early on in Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, the young protagonist confronts a possessed frog statue in a house surrounded by a bloody lake. The possessor turns out to be a rotten Jack O’Lantern, capable of dangerous fire magic but with a goofy, cheerful grin. Defeating it, Jimmy stands where it used to be, and immediately empathises with the creature. He sees himself as the pumpkin, spooking strangers, before returning home to find his family mourning his death.

Minutes later, I put the controller down. I can’t bring myself to speak or move Jimmy from his spot or even go to the home menu. I’m sobbing uncontrollably. It’s here that I know that Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is special.

At first glance, it looks like a quirky, eerie RPG, drawing inspiration from EarthBound among many other SNES-era games. But it’s way more than that. Largely developed by solo dev Kasey Ozymy (now co-founder of two-person dev Starseed Games), this is one of the few retro-inspired RPGs that gets what EarthBound is trying to do. Yes, it’s weird, and yes, it’s messed up, but it emotionally engages with how kids react to the world and the problems it throws their way in a way that respects them. Few games can claim to do that.

And it manages it by deftly balancing tonal dissonance. The writing is among the best I’ve seen from a small developer, oscillating between moments of sadness to absurd joy to hilarity to terror deftly throughout. Yet the horrors of Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass aren’t just the terrifying black cat cloaked in shadows or the puss-riddled bees who attack on sight; it’s the game’s very subject matter.

I won’t spoil it here, but the story drops many early hints about what Jimmy’s really going through, and as you put the pieces together, it makes every single aspect of the game that much more resonant – and painful. From the gameplay to the exploration to even the structure, everything has a purpose.

Take the almost childlike look of the game. Jimmy is just an eight-year-old, so of course his dream world looks like a mesh of bright colours, towns of rat people, and simple pixel art. It’s clearly evoking EarthBound’s Peanuts-esque style, but doubling down on the innocence. Even when things get unsettling, like the bloody rivers and the syringes sticking out of the ground, there’s a simplicity that works, especially when paired with the catchy soundtrack, which matches each location beat-for-beat. I still have that cheery world map tune stuck in my head.

Jimmy himself is a silent protagonist, but he’s beautifully realised because everything you experience is through his eyes, exemplified by his circumstances. Even some of his imaginary friend characters — one of whom feels a little shoehorned in and quickly forgotten about — are based on either shows he’s watched with his uncle or his perception of what’s cool (and Punch Tanaka is cool).

Still, I grew to love most of the cast, flaws and all. Jimmy’s father, Andrew, might be my favourite: a logic-based man who tries not to let emotion get the better of him. At least, that’s how Jimmy presents him mostly, but it makes the heartfelt moments that much more effective. It’s about holding onto the good even when the bad is overwhelming.

And there’s a lot of bad, as a result of Jimmy’s fears being amplified in his dream world while it’s disrupted by the titular Pulsating Mass. But the story doesn’t demean horror or fear in any way. Gigantic whale carcasses and cute, cuddly cartoon characters that gradually become dysmorphic, losing eyes and bleeding out, aren’t just here for shock value. Kids' fears aren’t something to laugh at – they’re genuinely scary.

Jimmy is clearly a troubled kid, but his defining trait is his strong emotional sensitivity, which enables him to put himself in the shoes of anything from a bully to a smelly blob of goo to a ‘50s-style vampire, and transform into them. Whenever you acquire these transformations, you get one of those aforementioned passages as Jimmy pictures himself as the ‘thing’ he is becoming, experiencing, for instance, the joy of the sunflower in a field before loneliness at not being picked.

These compassionate transformations also have multiple uses, too, making the moment-to-moment gameplay that much more fun. All of the games’ dungeons and locales have secrets tucked away, only accessible by becoming these beings.

I crashed Jimmy’s Grumble Bear butt through a frozen pond, revealing an entire secret dungeon complete with a tough boss encounter. I shook multiple NPCs in every town I came across – sometimes they’d respond in anger, others would make me laugh. Occasionally, I even got a reward. The secrets are where almost all of the best content lies; Jimmy’s freedoms within his dream are your freedoms as a player.

Transformations are also crucial in combat, too. They function as classes, like a healer or a tank, that you can change into during battle to suit the party’s needs. They level up separately from the party, and as they grow, you unlock and can equip skills onto other jobs. It’s more limited between transformations, but the goal is to build up enough skills and use Jimmy as himself, essentially a Final Fantasy V Freelancer, a highly customisable character who can fit any role with the right toolset.

This helps elevate the traditional turn-based combat into something more thoughtful. Knowledge truly is king in Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass – understanding every skill and how to supplement your strengths is key in every single fight. I died a lot in both normal encounters and bosses for the first half of the game, scraping my way through battle with limited resources or a lack of understanding.

Random encounters made this a little frustrating at first, especially when I found a secret dungeon I was clearly under-levelled for, but once you’re strong enough, you can skip these by pressing 'B' when you see a green exclamation mark. (To be safe, save everywhere and often, because dying causes you to lose half your money and be transported back to the world map.)

Eventually, I realised I always had the tools I needed to progress; it was just a case of how to utilise them and put the pieces together. By the end of my 35-hour playthrough, I was one-shotting secret bosses and normal fights lasted seconds. Grinding was never the answer, and I came to relish the simplicity and strategy of fights.

I’ve had someone begging me to play Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass since its Steam release in 2018, and now that I’ve finally played it on Switch (and Switch 2, where it runs perfectly), my only regret is I didn’t pick it up sooner. A game hasn’t stuck with me like this for a long time, and it might even be the most I’ve cried at an RPG ever.