Boomerang Jack has an interesting premise, but it does not have enough fun gameplay mechanics to sustain its playtime.
The story doesn’t give you much to chew on, and it barely bothers introducing your character, the titular Boomerang Jack. You’re simply the first mate whose captain sends you on a mission to stop a pirate king terrorizing coastal towns and villages. So you hop onto a tiny raft and charge straight through the defenses to infiltrate his ship, without even pretending to be stealthy. You don’t get very far, but a talking parrot helps you escape and decides to tag along for the adventure.
True to your name, your main weapon is a boomerang. In fact, you have several of them and can throw them in quick succession almost like a machine gun. You can even hold down the attack button, though only for a few seconds before needing a brief pause to reset and start another attack pattern.
The downside is that the range is extremely short, forcing you to get dangerously close to enemies. To balance that out, you also have a secondary smash attack that throws a single boomerang much farther. It’s useful for destroying objects and hitting switches or enemies over walls that your standard attack simply can’t reach.
Boomerang Jack’s gameplay feels similar to a twin-stick shooter, so it’s very comfortable with a gamepad, though mouse and keyboard work just as well if you prefer faster aiming. I actually found the mouse a bit better because the combat relies heavily on rhythm-based combos, which are easier to pull off with precise clicks.
For example, tapping the attack button repeatedly creates a spinning spiral attack that damages everything around you. But if you pause briefly after the first throw—roughly the time it takes for one boomerang to return—and attack again, you unleash a straight barrage of boomerangs with much longer range.
The problem is that there’s no visual cue to help with the timing, so you’re forced to learn it by feel. In the middle of hectic fights, it can get frustrating because pressing the button at the wrong moment triggers an entirely different combo than the one you intended. Things become even messier later when more attack variations are introduced, to the point where I mostly ignore the advanced moves and stick with the basics.
Defensively, you have a kick that reflects projectiles, a dash, and a shockwave ability. The shockwave has a cooldown, but it’s great for smashing nearby objects and occasionally stunning enemies. The dash ends up being one of the most useful abilities because it lets you move through or over hazards, especially liquids. You sink slowly enough to dash back to safety before drowning. Later on, you gain a grapple mechanic who works alongside the dash, and both become essential for navigating these environmental hazards.
Both your attacks and defensive abilities can be upgraded with extra perks. Dash attacks can start damaging enemies, kicks can speed up shockwave recharge, and you can unlock heavier combo finishers. Oddly, the upgrade menu is accessible almost anytime, which honestly feels like either a bug or leftover design from an earlier version, since special hands in certain locations open the same menu. Either way, stronger upgrades are gated behind story progression so you can’t become overpowered too early.
Money is used to buy upgrades and can be collected from smashed barrels, crates, dead enemies, and treasure chests. There’s plenty of it if you take time to explore, especially since many hidden stashes require figuring out small environmental puzzles even when they’re sitting almost in plain sight. Food acts as your healing resource and is the only way to recover health.
Progression is linear, taking you through a series of small stages. Exploration rarely feels rewarding because there are no meaningful collectibles, secrets, or achievements waiting for you. Most of the game revolves around combat, though there are occasional puzzles involving switches, keys, pressure plates, or lighting objects on fire with your boomerang. You’ll also run into ambush sections where gates stay locked until every enemy is defeated.
Death isn’t too punishing since you can take several hits and briefly become invincible after getting damaged. Still, the game constantly throws large groups of enemies at you: pirates tossing bottles and bombs, tentacles firing projectiles, homing parrots, cannonballs, and plenty of other hazards that can shred your health very fast.
Boss fights are easily the toughest part. Their second phases become significantly more aggressive, and many encounters constantly spawn additional enemies, creating sudden difficulty spikes. The time-bomb boss in particular felt like pure chaos and was the one fight that finally pushed me to lower the difficulty, which I barely survived.
Thankfully, progress loss in Boomerang Jack is minimal because stages include frequent checkpoints marked by flags. One strange quirk, though, is that dying never removes your money. Since destructible objects and enemies respawn, you can repeatedly farm currency with almost no effort and quickly afford every upgrade as soon as it unlocks.
For a long while, the game feels repetitive, but the second half finally introduces fresher ideas. You gain a grapple hook that lets you swing across specific points, along with a tornado attack that slams enemies into the ground. The story also becomes much more involved, introducing new characters and lore that make the world feel far more interesting than it did at the start.
Unfortunately, the pacing in Boomerang Jack suffers badly overall. The first half drags on for too long, while the later sections suddenly dump most of the intriguing mechanics and story developments on you all at once. To make matters worse, the last few stages are plagued by severe performance problems, from constant freezes every few seconds that made the entire thing unplayable to a boss who will just stand there doing nothing. And finally, there’s nothing after beating the final boss except for a dance and a message that you’re getting the epilogue in future updates.
Verdict
Despite its creative boomerang-based combat and some enjoyable movement mechanics later on, Boomerang Jack struggles with repetitive progression, shallow exploration, unclear combo timing, and late-game performance issues. The stronger ideas arrive too late to fully save the experience, leaving it as a mildly entertaining but uneven action adventure.
Reviewed for Steam.
Developer: Recall Interactive
Publisher: The Bueno Lab
Release Date: Out now
Pros:
- Fast and chaotic boomerang combat
- Forgiving traversal mechanics
Cons:
- Frustrating combo timing
- Uneven pacing throughout
- Repetitive first half
- Difficulty spikes
- Unsatisfying end
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Fair
