Reviewers praised Jetpac's presentation and gameplay, and it won "Game of the Year" at the Golden Joystick Awards in 1983.

[4] In addition, the player has to defend themselves from the planet's aliens, and for bonus points collect valuable resources which occasionally fall from above.

Crash praised the graphics and presentation, citing that they were of "the highest standard" and added that it was "difficult to find any real faults" with the game.

[6] In a retrospective review, Chris Wilkins of Eurogamer noted that the colourful graphics and sound effects were advanced for the time, but what truly made for a "faultless" experience was its simple gameplay.

[9] ZX Computing praised the game's playability and replay value, stating that Jetpac was "a very well put together piece of software".

[11] After the game's release, Jetpac was parodied in a long-running Crash comic strip named Lunar Jetman.

To develop the comic, photographs had to be processed manually on a photomechanical tone and then transferred to paper, being fully colorized in the late 1980s.

The game was retained in the April 2015 Virtual Console re-release of Donkey Kong 64 on the Wii U, despite the property being technically owned by Microsoft.