47. Jackie Chan Stuntmaster (Radical Entertainment, Playstation, 2000)

Jackie Chan Stuntmaster (or "Jackie Chan's Tuntmaster" as I like to call it) is a hybrid brawler platformer released late in the original Playstation's life by Radical Entertainment, who would go on to make The Simpsons: Hit & Run and Prototype. The game is themed like a Jackie Chan movie: you play as Jackie Chan, whose grandfather is kidnapped by some kind of gangsters, and you spend the game fighting and platforming through typical 80s/90s Jackie Chan movie locations: chinatown, shipyard, etc.

It's a fairly standard beat 'em up, with most things you've seen before in Final Fight or Streets of Rage: you can break open barrels to find health refilling food within, jump kicks are great for knocking enemies down. Though the trappings of a beat 'em up do feel right at home in a Jackie Chan movie, even picking up a paint roller or broom to whack a dude with felt cool because it's something I could imagine Jackie Chan doing in one of his films. You can even flip over tables.

The combat reminds me of Die Hard Arcade, which is one of my favorite arcade games, there's buttons for punching, kicking, jumping, grabbing, and dodging, and the fighting gameplay never feels unfair like it can tend to in this genre. None of the action has an amazing feel to it, but it's also far from terrible. There is not a whole lot of depth to the combat, so you figure out an optimal strategy pretty quickly.

There are also platforming segments, which are fairly Crash Bandicoot-esque. There are multiple sequences where you are running toward the screen away from a truck that are very Crash / Pepsiman in particular. Levels are generally pretty simple and blocky in their designs. There is a wall jump, which I always appreciate, but it mostly just makes me want for Super Mario 64. Interestingly there are frequent platforming challenges that you can attempt in order to avoid certain combat altogether, which was cool. Eventually some more strict platforming challenges coupled with the game's lives/continue system (though the lives are "takes", which is cute) led me to put this one down. I did have a great time, though, especially as a big fan of Jackie Chan's early martial arts movies.

4/5, this is as close to a good Jackie Chan Adventures game as we're going to get.