When you’re looking to spice up a side-scrolling action platformer there’s nothing quite like the addition of a jetpack to the mix. By instantly making the explorable space more vertical more easily, it instantly makes the game world feel a bit bigger. In the case of Jett Rider, this was initially a positive, until I realized it felt quite familiar… but we’ll return to that in a moment.

The focus in Jett Rider, for the most part, is pretty simple. You’ll explore, find critical bits of things laying about, recycle them, kill stuff, collect loot, get upgrades, and then progress to the next area. Ideally you’ll also discover a secret area or two along the way, helping you to more quickly accumulate better gear, but you get the idea. Oh, and throw in a periodic boss battle as well for good measure. 

In general, the experience isn’t by any means extraordinary but it’s at least mechanically sound and its style of play isn’t very common in the eShop. Except for its predecessor made by the same developer that in most regards is practically identical, even down to some of the game art, called Willy Jetman.

Well, it turns out that game is no longer available, with this seeming to be the somewhat upgraded and renamed version. I suppose that works well enough, and I was at least charmed by the original, but it was a bit confusing when I first began playing due to a serious sense of deja vu. Now, if you happened to already own Willy Jetman from a while back, you absolutely shouldn’t buy this as it’s mostly the same game. If, however, you weren’t previously acquainted with it, there's a fun vibe to the experience and there really aren’t any other games quite like it on the system, so it may be worth a look.