Jupiter & Mars

Jupiter & Mars starts from a wonderfully inviting place: you are a dolphin swimming through a future ocean, with a companion at your side and flooded human spaces to explore. It is a softer, more contemplative kind of action adventure, built around helping marine life rather than mowing through enemies.

That mood carries the game farther than its moment-to-moment challenges do. If you enjoy exploratory games with environmental themes, light puzzle-solving, and gradual ability-based access to new areas, there is enough charm here to justify a dive. Anyone hoping for a sharp, demanding action game may find its machine-neutralizing loop a little too mild.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Swimming through Jupiter & Mars is immediately appealing because the game asks you to inhabit the ocean rather than conquer it. You control Jupiter while directing Mars, an AI dolphin companion, and the pair’s work is tied to restoring a sea disrupted by machines. That makes the action feel less like a standard combat march and more like an exploratory cleanup effort with a sci-fi edge.

The structure will feel familiar if you like ability-gated exploration. You search submerged spaces, rescue creatures, locate treasure, and pick up power-ups that open routes and abilities previously out of reach. There is a satisfying rhythm to returning to an earlier stretch with a new option, especially when your curiosity has already spotted a path you could not use the first time through.

Its gentler priorities are also where frustration can creep in. Neutralizing machinery and working through puzzle elements do not give the game the fierce momentum of a combat-heavy action title, and the AI-companion setup is more interesting in concept than a guaranteed source of drama. Give it a chance for relaxed exploration and ecological atmosphere, not because you want every encounter to test your reflexes.

Graphics

The strongest images are the contrast between open ocean life and a future Earth whose cities have sunk below the surface. Dolphins, rescued sea creatures, and machine-disrupted underwater spaces give the world a clear sense of purpose: nature is still moving through the ruins of human civilization rather than simply serving as scenery.

Story

Jupiter & Mars keeps its story centered on an easy-to-grasp conflict: machines are harming sea life, and two dolphins set out to stop them. It is a premise with obvious environmental convictions, but it avoids needing a complicated pile of lore before you understand why the journey matters.

The future-Earth setting gives that conflict more weight than a generic save-the-world setup. Flooded cities turn humanity’s past into part of the ocean itself, while the creatures you rescue make the stakes feel local and immediate. You are not just checking off targets. You are moving through a world where the damage has reached living things.

Do not expect the narrative to be the main reason to finish. Its role is to give your exploration a humane direction and to keep the machine conflict from feeling arbitrary. That is enough for the game’s calm, purposeful tone, even if it does not develop into a deeply layered tale.

Overall Experience

Jupiter & Mars is easiest to appreciate when you meet it on its own terms. This is an underwater adventure that values curiosity, restoration, and atmosphere over aggression. Its optional PS VR support can make the premise especially tempting, but the standard television play experience is the same original PS4 journey.

The best audience is someone who enjoys following a map of possibilities, earning new access through power-ups, and taking an environmental theme seriously without needing a lecture. The single-player focus helps the game feel personal, with Jupiter and Mars carrying the entire expedition rather than turning it into a noisy co-op diversion.

At its best, it makes exploration feel kind. At its weaker points, the light action and puzzle-driven progression may not create enough urgency to hold you if you need a tougher challenge. Still, its oceanic setting and restorative mission give it a character many action adventures lack. For official PS4 details, see the Jupiter & Mars PlayStation page.