Vexx | DJcube

Vexx will stop at nothing to overthrow the evil Prince Yabu and bring peace back to his planet.

NA release: 11th February 2003
EU release: 4th April 2003
JP release: N/A
Developer: Acclaim Studios Austin
Publisher: Acclaim
NGC Magazine: 66%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

Vexx was originally a very ambitious game that got hit with some massive snags during development. First of all, it was going to be a buddy duo platformer starring a young elf called Clip, who had an animal buddy called Mischief on his shoulder. It was a massive blow when Naughty Dog revealed Jak and Daxter, which featured very similar looking characters, so they ditched Mischief and redesigned Vexx to be a darker protagonist.

A large open world was designed for the game as well, but when it game to porting form the lead platform (the Xbox) to other consoles (the GameCube might have handled it, but the PS2 couldn’t), this concept would not work, meaning the levels had to be reduced and chopped up. You can still see elements of this in the final game, with the main hub having portal doors that, once opened, you can just walk straight into the level. It still looks impressive, although I wish the message that popped up was replaced with the in-game door having some kind of activation animation to sell the transition better.

Despite the hurdles, Vexx is still an entertaining platformer with some great-looking worlds. The platforming works well and I didn’t have any issues judging jumps. The object is to find a number of wraith hearts hidden in each level, which functions similarly to Super Mario 64: pick a heart you want to tackle (which gives you a clue) and get sent back out the level when you collect it. However, the only thing that changes in the level when you pick different hearts are the arrows pointing to where you need to go.

This takes away a lot of the exploration form Vexx and means traversing the same long paths many times. I feel like these levels would work much better with the signposts removed and not taking you out of the level whenever you collect a heart, as sometimes you’ve partly done an objective (like the six hidden jars or 100 orbs in each level) and have to start it from scratch if you get a different heart.

Another let down of Vexx is the day and night system. The developers clearly aimed for it to do a lot more, but at night enemies are stronger and some gates (that warp you to a linear platforming section) are only open at set times. It’s very impressive the first time you spin a sundial to rapidly advance the time of day, but it’s pointless after that, especially as you’re better off running past enemies than fighting them.

There’s also a lack of personality to Vexx. Vexx himself just snarls, while the are very few other characters in the game. Part of this was because the developers accidentally paid the main villain’s voice actor, Brian Cox, the entire voice acting budget, so they had to make cuts to voice acting elsewhere. This results in a somewhat empty feeling game, which is a massive shame as the core gameplay is fun and the level design is solid. It’s enjoyable, but it could have been so much more.

Fun

There’s nothing wrong with Vexx, as such, it’s just that it doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen before, and what it does do is as familiar as a very old friend indeed. It’s perfectly competent, robustly constructed, and relatively absorbing. But it’s also like playing a faint, smudged photocopy of Mario Sunshine, and why would you want to do that when you can bask in the dazzling Technicolour glory of the original?
Jes Bickham, NGC Magazine #79

Remake or remaster?

A remaster could smooth out a few things and make entering the levels as seamless as originally intended.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to buy Vexx.