Leave it to fans of a somewhat niche movie franchise to dig a game squarely aimed at them. Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch is the second title based on Kevin Smith’s “Viewaskew-verse” following 2020’s Jay and Silent: Mall Brawl by the same developer, Interbang Entertainment. It’s been in development for quite a long time, and it’s apparently thanks to Atari and Digital Eclipse that it’s finally coming out.
While Mall Brawl skewed to a more nostalgic approach when it came to it presentation, with some very 8-bit NES inspired graphics and basic gameplay, Chronic Blunt Punch is much more ambitious, sporting hand-drawn and very well animated characters, but it’s still unfortunately too simple in terms of gameplay, especially after such releases like Streets of Rage 4 and Absolum that truly leveled up beat ‘em up genre.
There’s not really much of a premise to the game. Titular Jay and Silent Bob are hanging out in front of Quick Stop Groceries, in Red Bank, New Jersey, their stomping ground, when they decide to step in for a meal, only to find out that the place has been ransacked by punks and that Randall – Jeff Anderson’s character from Clerks – has been kidnapped. That leads into a series of levels all around town in order to beat up all manner of weird folks, all the while showing off plenty of location references that Viewaskew fans will appreciate, like Smith’s own real-world comic book shop, the Secret Stash.
Basic gameplay is painfully simple and doesn’t really evolve. You can pick from either of the duo, but they don’t differ much in terms of attacks, with only a quick and a strong one that can be linked into combos that can go up to the 100s if you can manage to wrangle enough enemies. There’s a handful of partner specials you pick up along the way related to a few key characters from the movies, like aforementioned Randall, Dante, and other more obscure but still relevant characters, like William, the Magic Painting dude from Mallrats.
Outside of those, you can build meter in order to fire off a special, but like the partner one, it takes way too long to finally be able to pull off, making holding on to them for just the right occasion an annoying and unwanted crutch since foes sometimes have way too much health and take forever to go down. Add to that the fact that levels are very repetitive and the game generally lacks any variety in combat, and you’ll already know what you’re in for in the first few minutes.
It’s also unfortunate that there’s no option to play this online with friends. You can only play cooperatively locally, so unless you can wrangle someone to be your Jay or Silent Bob, you’re gonna have to face this one by your lonesome. Even with its limitations, a brawler like this can be made more fun with a buddy in tow, so having the choice to bring a pal from across the web would’ve been nice. It’s something that’s become a standard nowadays, so it’s especially noticeable when not available, which is the case here.
For what it is, Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch is an amusing pickup only for the most die-hard of Kevin Smith fans, thanks to its multitude of in-universe references and expletive-filled language. For anyone not in that group, it’s a very barebones beat ‘em up that feels dated from the very get-go when compared to what’s been recently put out.
