Club Retro 2020: May - Mascot Platformers
May 4, 2020 12:49:01 GMT -5
Post by Ex on May 4, 2020 12:49:01 GMT -5
I sampled some SNES mascot platformers today.
Wagyan Paradise = Man there are a LOT of Wagyan games - none of which have had an official translation yet. Well I started playing this SFC one and was enjoying the nice colorful graphics, smooth gameplay, relaxing atmosphere... until I reached the first boss. That's when I learned that this series' boss encounters are instead mini-games, being based on the Japanese wordplay game "shiritori". Without having said wordplay mini-games translated into English, that's just an impenetrable roadblock. So I had to stop playing Wagyan Paradise. However, I went and checked RHDN, and some of the Famicom games in this series have been English translated. So I'll look into those later.
Wagyan Paradise = Man there are a LOT of Wagyan games - none of which have had an official translation yet. Well I started playing this SFC one and was enjoying the nice colorful graphics, smooth gameplay, relaxing atmosphere... until I reached the first boss. That's when I learned that this series' boss encounters are instead mini-games, being based on the Japanese wordplay game "shiritori". Without having said wordplay mini-games translated into English, that's just an impenetrable roadblock. So I had to stop playing Wagyan Paradise. However, I went and checked RHDN, and some of the Famicom games in this series have been English translated. So I'll look into those later.
Congo's Caper = A cavemen themed platformer, where you go around clubbing cavemen and dinosaurs to death. You can jump on enemies too, but that doesn't kill them. Well this one had a nice cutesy atmosphere, but the hit detection for clubbing was annoying, and the jumping was stilted. I especially found the unpredictable enemy behavior to be very annoying, and put me off beating the first boss. So this was a pass. I don't think it's terrible or anything, just typical Data East "meh".
Whirlo = What a strange platformer this is. At first I thought the protagonist was a cabbage man, but turns out he's supposed to be a lizard. A lizard that kills enemies using his pitchfork. The first enemies you come across in this game are cavemen. Yeah, I don't know what's up with all the caveman enemies in these old Japanese platformers. This game had an official English release in Europe. The story starts out dark, an evil witch covers the world in ash and kills lots of people, and the protagonist's son is near death, so said protagonist "Whirlo" goes out to kill the witch. Something like that. Unfortunately cabbage lizard man's gameplay was boring. Stabbing endless cavemen with a pitchfork while navigating simplistic platforming. I don't know who the hell thought this was ever gonna make money. It's a pass.
Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City = Purely attempted a play out of morbid curiosity. Somehow this managed to be even worse than I expected it to be. Absolute trash.
Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest = This released on SNES and Genesis. I tried the SNES version and regretted it. Terrible physics, sloppy controls, bottom of the barrel sludge - I got killed by a dude riding a skateboard twice with ten seconds of playing. A soulless licensed pile of binary bile.
Cooly Skunk = A lost oddity that was reclaimed not long ago. Well, it's got decent graphics. That's about all I'll say positive towards it. There's an extremely annoying voice sample that plays every time Cooly jumps. The visual design is overly busy, making it difficult to spot enemies. Cooly's attack mechanic is unreliable. This is just not very polished at all. Not the worst mascot platformer I've ever tried playing, but not good enough that I care to spend more of my limited lifespan enduring it either.
DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure = Well after all that subpar stuff, I finally came across something that is above average. Cute graphics, polished gameplay, stage designs with depth to them. A nice overworld map to enjoy as you segue between stages. All that positivity said, I'm putting this one aside for now too. Mainly because this is about a four hour long game. One of the reasons why, is you have to find hidden stars that power up musical instruments you need to take out the final boss. I'm really, really not a fan of backtracking to scour earlier levels for hidden objects that gatekeep progress in a platformer. Frankly I hate that shit. I'm also not looking to spend four hours on a mascot platformer either. I'd prefer platformers I can beat in an hour or less right now. However I want to make it clear, that I'm not saying DoReMi Fantasy is a bad game. This could very well be an above average experience, if you've got the patience for it. I don't right now.
Well there's plenty more mascot platformers to test in my bucket. I'll surely find a few worth finishing.