Port of Jumanah places you in the shoes of Mansour, a diver in search of shiny pearls. When disturbances appear underwater, Mansour is sent to investigate. He must bring peace to a plethora of sea creatures causing a ruckus.
Dive Deep
With a simple enough to follow story, we begin our quest. If you have played a roguelite before, you’ll know the rules. Start a run, enter a room, defeat all the baddies, head to the next room. Pretty standard stuff here but the one thing I really enjoyed about Port of Jumanah is that the structure itself is pretty short. Your runs typically will take 5-10 minutes each. This does encourage more runs but also makes sure you’re not stuck for 20+ minutes at a time.
After your run, you’ll head back to the city where you can undertake sidequests, talk to the various NPCs, or upgrade your weapons. It’s a nice break and way more colorful than any of the underworld hubs you’ll experience in Hades.
When you’re geared up, you take to your boat and head back to another expedition. Along the way, you can encounter more NPCs that can give you random upgrades, coins, and funny dialogue. It’s a nice mix of the in-between.
You can recruit certain crew members after doing a few quests for them and they will join you on your boat. They won’t tag along in combat but they provide additional perks for you while you are diving.
Stick and Move
The combat in Port of Jumanah consists of using 1 of a few weapons and 1 gadget. The weapons range from a balanced sword to a slow but heavy-hitting hammer. Your gadgets can be a harpoon to a machine that spits out fish to bite your enemies. You’ll have your pick of playstyles here and they’re all actually pretty viable.
The enemies that meet the weapon’s point ends are fish. Sometimes mean brawler fish that punch you in the face. Sometimes they’re fish with guns. That is right. A fish. With guns. I had a few “what the heck” moments when I entered a new area, and admit I laughed a few times at some of these. They were definitely unique.
The damage you take at the hands of these enemies can be healed at the end of each section. Your health is also your O2 meter. You will constantly lose oxygen the more you linger around underwater. Assuming you have picked up a few buffs or upgrades along the way, most of the time, it’s not too rough to handle.
Now the bosses, on the other hand, most of them are relatively simple (as long as you’ve healed enough previously) and have easy patterns. But if you do not have those buffs mentioned before, they can get rid of you pretty quickly. I made the mistake of hunting resources a few times instead of picking up one of the few Combat Cards (buffs) and got destroyed because of it. It didn’t happen every time, and is probably a skill issue, but it makes sense.
Comedy Over Darkness
The dialogue and writing in this game are pretty funny. The game doesn’t take itself very seriously and instead relies on comedy. It was definitely a welcome addition as a lot of games in this specific genre are darker.
Bosses will have additional lines to say to you when you meet them a few times over and defeat them. Characters in the towns will ask Mansour funny questions about if they can “one punch a whale” or not, and more. Again, you’ll never really find yourself in a dark place in Port of Jumanah.
It’s not sophisticated and it’s not quite “kid comedy” either. Since the majority of the writing is meant to be funny, you’ll get yourself a few chuckles out of it.
Sink or Swim?
Port of Jumanah isn’t without some things that I feel could be a little more fleshed out. There are a fair amount of combat cards to help assist you on your journey but I do feel there weren’t enough. Or at least have some diversity between them. A few seem to be just variations of themselves. That is normally fine but with a limited amount, they take up some spaces.
I know I mentioned the short runs earlier as a good thing and they very well can be. The problem is that they often become repetitive. Although you will get and unlock new areas to roam around in, you’ll have to head to them a quite a few times over and over for resources, story, and side quests. They’re not difficult, you just want to move on after awhile.
Without a doubt, Port of Jumanah really feels like an appetizer before a full roguelite meal. You get a taste of what a much bigger game will offer and I think that is just fine. If you are looking for a game where you can hop in, have a few laughs, and do a few fun runs while drinking a coffee, this is for you. I’d give Port of Jumanah a solid 7 out of 10.
Port of Jumanah is available on PlayStation 5, PC via Steam, and the Epic Games Store.
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