#jimmy is seriously one of my fav games ever i highly recommend it

[pyjamaart]

one of my favorite edgelords 😈

Let's talk about one of my favorite games of all time, Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass.

I had originally started working on a different piece of art for this game, but that one is still a work in progress, since I have to get my shit together and draw multiple pieces of furniture for it. That's why I decided to draw something easier first. And I say easier, even though I spent like two weeks on this. Man, I really don't have that much time to draw anymore since I started working at my new job... Sometimes I really miss my old job, where I could finish all my work in an hour and then read Transformers fanfictions for the rest of the day. Sigh...........

I tried out a bunch of new stuff with Buck here, like finally learning that there actually is an Overlay function in Gimp and then promptly using it for the fancy effect on the line art, the pattern on his wings and the background. This image also made me realize I can only draw giant Mega Man boots. That's why his shoes look like that, lol.

Now let's finally talk about this game. If you don't know anything about Jimmy, it's a Mother inspired game about a little boy fighting horrors in his dream world together with his family and some other wacky characters like the coolest man you have ever seen, an anime waifu and a bear. The game starts off like a typical RPG where his mom sends Jimmy and his brother, Buck (pictured here in this image, I'll explain why he looks like that in a minute), to fetch some honey for a cake she wants to bake. And to get that honey, the two brothers visit the beehive that's located south of their house. On the way there, they have to fight various goofy looking monsters in turn based battles. Jimmy unlocks the power of empathy and imagination at the start of the game and can turn into some of the monsters he defeats in battle, by putting himself in their shoes. Examples include a smelly green blob that was living in his brothers dirty clothes, a sunflower that was getting freaky with some of the bees, a very fast bird, and a bear.

When they finally make it to the beehive, the queen explains that a group of thugs is bothering them and promises to give Jimmy some of their honey if he takes care of the ruffians for her. The so called "petty thugs" are located in a canyon right next door, so Jimmy and Buck go and beat them up. After various shenanigans, including a "goon exam" and Buck breaking some bartenders spine after he refused to serve Jimmy some milk, they have a battle with Punch Tanaka, the worlds raddest guy and also the leader of the thugs.

I think this is a good time to mention that this game is freaking hard. Punch was the first fight in the game where I lost a couple of times, since it really takes you a while to learn all the games battle mechanics. I didn't truly understand the power of Startle/Alert until I was halfway through the game. That's on me though. I'm stupid. Still, later boss fights can get insanely difficult if you don't know what you're doing. (Looking at you, Lingering Eyes....) After kicking the thug leaders ass on the first try, the whole gang flees the canyon, but not before Punch warns Jimmy that he doesn't know what he's up against. He's not talking about himself or his gang, but his employer. And we soon find out who that employer is...

Back in Giant Garden, Jimmy and Buck make their way over to the beehive again, only to be confronted by a trail of green liquid that leads from the throne to a door in the back of the room. The atmosphere suddenly turns very eerie, with the whole hive being shrouded in darkness, the background music being replaced by a frightening track that sounds like someone held a microphone right inside a dying swarm of insects, rightfully titled "Cacophany of Bees" and the enemies you fight on your way deeper into the hive being horrifically mutated, suffering, cannibalistic versions of the bees you fought beforehand. This is the first time in the game you come into contact with a so-called "nightmare dungeon", if you ignored the secret one you can unlock in the canyon.

These nightmare dungeons all represent one of Jimmys fears, because, as you can probably recall, we're playing through the dreams of a ten year old boy. Maybe he was stung by a bee in the past and that's why he developed a fear of them? (Doesn't help that his brother loves to terrorize the poor things...) The other nightmare dungeon themes only get worse than bees: spiders, heights, drowning, haunted houses, math, eternal sleep ...and bears.

Coming back to the beehive, after trekking through a plethora of gore and dead cartoon insects, Jimmy and Buck get confronted by the now heavily mutated queen of the bees, who has some of the most chilling dialogue in the entire game.

"Jimmy... Jimmy, where did you go?

I can't see well, Jimmy.

I can't hear well, Jimmy.

I can taste blood, Jimmy.

It's dark and I'm alone. It's dark and I'm alone. It's dark and I'm alone. It's dark and I'm alone. It's dark and I'm alone."

In the end it turns out that the title-giving pulsating mass is behind all the terrible things happening to Jimmy's dream world, like employing the petty thugs to terrorize him, corrupting the poor bees, the nightmare dungeons, etc etc. And after Jimmy and Buck finally get back to their house, they arrive just in time to see their whole family getting kidnapped by a space ship. Even the two brothers get beamed up into the ship. All part of the pulsating mass's master plan...

Now I won't go into detail and tell you the whole story of the game (even though I really want to), but you can expect the game to get even darker later on. Normally, I don't enjoy playing really dark and gritty games, but thankfully, since this game was inspired by the Mother games, it still retains some of the funny and heartwarming moments that the series is known for. And I like that a lot. If the heartwarming moments balance out the horrors, then I can deal with the horrors. (TVTropes has this very fitting trope called "Too bleak, stopped caring", which Jimmy masterfully avoids with its charming, yet flawed characters and ridiculous moments that genuinely make you laugh, like the whole game shifting into an entirely different genre for one specific area.)

I'll try my best not to get into too heavy spoilers (that's reserved for the other piece I'm drawing), but I think I still need to explain what happened to poor Buck here. Just like the queen bee, he's been taken over and corrupted by the pulsating mass, after saving Jimmy from a murderous bear. (As you can tell, there are a lot of bears in Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. Or is it always the same bear? Better play the game and find out!) After the dreaded bear boss fight happens and Buck gets dragged down into a hole, Jimmy and their mother Helga jump in after him, but you don't see him again until way later in the game, where he suddenly sports this massive pair of veiny wings, his slightly deformed skin and muscles have turned into a deep shade of purple and his eyes glow in a menacing red. There's also no talking to him, since his normal grumpy personality has been turned up to eleven and he's completely blinded by rage, actively attacking and sabotaging his family members in their quest to stop the pulsating mass.

He gets better though. Don't worry.

What I find really interesting about this character is that he genuinely loves his little brother and wants him to get stronger and more independent, but the way he tries to accomplish this is just really really... bad. In a late-game dungeon centered around Buck you find out that he's actually responsible for all the horrifying abominations and gore making their way into Jimmys head. How, you ask? By showing him a bunch of thrillers and splatter movies that were definitely not meant to be seen by a ten year old boy. Just to "toughen him up". Another dungeon centered around him, titled "The Abyss" (which is just a memory zone and not a nightmare zone, despite the scary title) implies that Jimmy is actually a little scared of his big brother. As I've said, all of Jimmys family members are deeply flawed people. (Don't even get me started on his uncle. Oh BOY. More on that in my next essay.) But I think it's nice. I think it makes the characters much more human. Much more relatable. Because despite all the horrible things his brother put him through and despite how scared he is of him, Jimmy still loves him a lot. And over the course of the game you get to understand that despite how imperfect and dysfunctional Jimmys family is, they're all there for him in the end to help him fight against the pulsating mass.

Man, I have so many feelings about this game. That's why it's one of my favorites of all time.

But before I'm done yapping, one more thing about Buck: The fact that he's an older brother, was presumed dead after going missing and reappears later in the game completely changed with a big pair of wings reminds me a lot of Claus from Mother 3. And since he's one of my favorite video game characters ever, Buck gets a lot of points in that regard alone. But enough with the Mother comparisons, other reviewers (Am I a reviewer now?) have already done that in massive amounts.

I think I'm gonna stop here for now and continue my essay when I post the other piece of Jimmy fanart I'm working on. Until then (and until I get my shit together and draw some cabinets and chairs), see you next time.

Jenny out.