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It brings me absolutely no joy to say it, but it's plain to see. This is likely the worst Jackbox we've gotten in years. I don't want to overdramatize this review, but I've always looked to this series as a really big part of my social circle, Jackbox nights are one of the few things that can get everyone in the same room together without fail, and with the previous 5 or so constantly building and improving upon each other, getting something this blatantly rushed out and poorly done feels like a bit of a slap in the face, and it makes me worried about where the future instalments are headed, and if they'll even be worth picking up.
Anyways, lets run through the games. Normally, I'd highlight the 1 or 2 games that are the standouts of this pack, but honestly, there isn't one here. There's only one sequel game in this pack, Tee K.O. 2, and its... disappointing. New to the pack is... 2 new font options, the ability to make your shirt a hoodie or a muscle-shirt, and a worse final round? Tee K.O. was one of my favourite games from the series, and it still is, but there's no reason to play this one over the original. Of the four new games, we have a lacklustre coop rhythm game, another trivia game, and 2 things that barely qualify as games at all. We'll get them out of the way first.
FixyText might as well be Wordspud 2. It's that bad. You and your friends are split up into 2 teams. Each team takes turns getting text prompts, and answering them all at the same time, with no backspace button. Being in a team doesn't really matter, you aren't really working together, and points are awarded by the other team picking funny words in your text wall. We played this one a few times, and never really got much out of it. Hypnotorious is just as bad, its labelled as a social deduction role-play game, but the rules are non existent, and the whole premise is flawed at the core. You each get a person or thing, and have to answer questions as whatever you were assigned. You then have to put yourself into one of 3 categories with everyone else. Everyone belongs to 1 of the 2 categories, with the third being for the odd one out in the group. You don't KNOW you'er the odd one out, so lying doesn't really work, you don't know what the categories are outside of hints that are either too obvious or say nothing, and everyone gets the same amount of points in the end anyways? We tried really hard to get this one, but after hours of modifying our own personal rules, we just couldn't make it work. We got a flawless victory every time, and we usually had it by round 2. It goes nowhere, and by the end it just sort of happens, no one feels anything, and you just kinda wish you were doing something else. Every Jackbox pack has 1 or 2 throwaway games that you play once and don't really try again, but they're all still playable. These are just confusing at best, and frustratingly boring at worst.
The other 2 games are Timejinx, and Do Re Mi. Timejinx is a trivia game where you guess what year something happened. Its pretty much just Guesspionage but with years instead of percentages. Trivia games are always Jackboxes weakest showings, and this is no exception. Do Re Mi is just any one of those cookie cutter mobile rhythm games you can find anywhere for free, but you all of your scores are combined at the end. If you like rhythm games, it definitely is a rhythm game. The songs aren't much, beating the boss at the end takes way too long and just feels arbitrary, and there are a lot better options out there for playing rhythm games with your friends. I really like the idea, but like everything else in this pack, it just lacks any polish.
Jackbox has been on a yearly release schedule for awhile now, and its starting to catch up with them. This is the 10th one, it should have been a big milestone, a celebration of all of the awesome games that they've made, a monument of this cool series that noone else has really been able to replicate, but instead, it feels like a cheap cash grab they threw out for the sake of it. They bumped the price up again on this one, and really, I think aside from Party Pack 1, this is probably the worst one they've put out. I wouldn't bother picking it up, even if you're a huge fan of the series, wait for a heavy discount if you HAVE to play it. The good entries are so endlessly replayable that this model is completely unnecessary, and its really disappointing to see something this bad come from a series that I've admired for such a long time. 2/10.