MADAGASCAR
Competent but still not particularly good, the main gimmick of this one is being able to swap between all the characters from the movies to use their different abilities (which they gain more of throughout the game).
There are some collect-a-thon levels with super light puzzle elements, some stealth ones (which are not very fun but at least forgiving), and minigames, but for the most part itâs just going from left to right as the different critters in very generic platformer levels, constantly swapping between characters (which gets tiresome).
Does a decent job of re-telling the story of the movie but fails to capture anything that was entertaining about it⌠looks the part, at least.
Once again, another one that would probably have kept kids happy, but otherwise a big olâ whatever. Takes about an hour to beat!
SHREK 2: BEG FOR MERCY
Yet another competent but not particularly good licensed game for the GBA, this time for good olâ Shrek 2: The Shrekening.
Itâs a pretty generic platformer, with most of the game spent playing as Puss in Boots. Sometimes you play as Shrek or Donkey, and those levels succkkk⌠both characters have limited mobility (especially Shrek), with the only interesting thing about them is being able to move blocks to get to access high areas. Quite dull.
Puss, on the other hand, can climb walls, hang from ceilings, swing on chains, hop on enemies, and attack with a sword. Much more fun!
Levels themselves can feel a bit generic and repetitive though, with the simplistic combat not doing much to help. They all boil down to making your way to the exit, often being sidetracked by looking for keys. Environments/enemies are rather limited too.
I really loved the poorly drawn cutscenes, though!
So yeah, would have been fun enough for kids who were fans of the movie, but nothing to go out of your way for today. Oh, itâs also about an hour long.
JUNGLE BOOK (SMS)
Good animation and visuals for the system, but has awful stiff controls and horrible momentum, and has that meandering level design Virgin is known for, the worst offenders being the collect-a-thon levels at the start and end of the game.
YOSHI
A Tetris clone with very little room for strategy⌠youâre mainly just getting Mario to rotate plates to match pairs of the same sprite. Sometimes an egg bottom comes down, and you can stack junk sprites on there and then seal it up when the top half of an egg shows up.
Thatâs how you score the biggest points (by sealing multiple sprites in an egg), but you canât really plan ahead or anything due to the tiny amount of play space and random egg drops. You canât build for big combos like in Puyo or save room for certain pieces like in Tetris⌠so it mostly comes down to luck, and you can turn your brain off for most of the game.
Also, it becomes ludicrously fiddly to organise stacks once they start throwing more than two sprites at you at once.
So, itâs not very good, but I kinda liked how simple the mechanics were and not having to think too much. I guess it has some kind of charm! That Yoshi charm.
SPECIAL CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
SHORT VERSION: A stripped down but fun enough port of the arcade game, this is a short and easy time (aside from the last level) but also there isnât much reason to go out of your way for this specific version.
LONG VERSION: Chase H.Q. is back and this time they brought a gun!
Seriously, itâs just the first game but now you can shoot the criminals instead of just ramming them. Well, there is also more of a âplotâ this time around, and some other minor things here and there, but really⌠this is just Chase H.Q. with a gun.
And itâs fun! This SMS port is obviously lacking a lot of the oomph of the arcade version and is quite scaled down, but is miles better than the ugly as hell port of the first game.
The biggest problem of this port is that scaling isnât great, so youâll think youâre going to pass another car, but then they suddenly double in size and are right on top of you⌠but itâs better than the awful PC Engine port where the car sprites fill half the damn screen and other cars are constantly cop-blocking you! You can see over your car more in this version too, which also helps.
But yeah, plays fine! Itâs short and easy, though the last level does the thing where if you fail it, you lose all your continues and have to start again⌠but it takes like ten minutes to get there again, and youâll get it after a few tries.
OH YEAH, this version also has a wonderfully poorly translated script. Makes the cutscenes much more entertaining.
Better than the PC Engine version, not nearly as exciting as the arcade version, this port would have been fine in the day (other than the short length) but there isnât much reason to play it today out of nostalgia.
FANTASY ZONE
Fantasy Zone is a game Iâve always wanted to like more than I actually do because I love the aesthetic and core design, but I hate the way the camera works, how the power-up system works, and the behavior of the enemies does my head in.
This is a solid port of it though, especially considering the hardware! The radar is gone, which I donât feel is a huge deal, and the screen doesnât scroll vertically which is a huge positive as it lets me see more information at once, and some bosses were changed and there are some other small things taken out/added here and there.
I probably like this more than the arcade game? But still not a big fan of the series overall.
CALIFORNIA GAMES
We all loved this as kids because it seemed so much cooler than those boring olympic sports games, plus it has such sunny and colourful aestheticsâŚ
But letâs face it, most of these games have awful, convoluted controls and play horribly.
The DOS version has a cute reference to Defender, at least!
WAVE RACE 64
Just beat this again for the first time in years (all the way through from Easy to Expert in one go) and still love it. The wave behaviour is of course not realistic, but it still looks cool and more importantly, the waves are just fun to bounce around on and are used to make compelling tracks with interesting challenges!
Love the variety of tracks, how they get harder with each difficulty rather than opponents rubber banding, love how stunts slow you down so they are just there to rub in your lead, love how animals swim around the tracks, love how some tracks change such as the tide going down, love shortcuts like going UNDER a jetty, love the aesthetics, the buoy power-up mechanic is clever, man this game just rules.
The only thing Iâd change is having a better framerate and more visual detail⌠oh and maybe a four player mode. Just a great time.
TIDBIT: You can play this entirely with your feet.
EXTRA TIDBIT: When the announcer says âno misses⌠beautiful!â it sounds like âyour missus is beautiful!â
SUPER MARIO WORLD
SHORT VERSION: More restrained and focused than Mario 3, World is a more playful game that encourages exploration and even a little thinking in addition to all the hopping on baddies. Not as strong as the previous game in my opinion, but still a damn good time.
LONG VERSION:
Nintendo didnât have anywhere to go but backwards after the maximalist design of Mario 3, and thatâs exactly what this is⌠a much more scaled back, focused, and refined game than Mario 3.
Some examples of this⌠there are no longer item cards (though you do keep one in reserve), power-ups are stripped back, the maps are less populated, and there is a more cohesive feel to the aesthetics as opposed to the varied worlds in the first game⌠itâs more of a single Mario world this time, hence the name I suppose.
Levels are longer and tend to feel more open than those in Mario 3, likely to accommodate the new cape power-up, which is much more fun than the racoon tail (though also much less accessible). Also, Yoshi is here and brings a lot of fun ideas with him. The whole game has more of a playground feeling than Mario 3, which was very much like an obstacle course most of the time.
Levels still tend to be built around certain mechanics and/or gimmicks as in Mario 3, while the forts/castles are more focused on being old fashioned obstacle courses. Ghost houses are also introduced, which are basically simple puzzle levels.
Though really, the whole game is a bit of a puzzle⌠a big thing in this game is finding secret exits, and slowly unlocking more of the world (and watching it change as you do so). There are some parts of the map which are a maze you can get stuck in if you donât find certain exits, even!
There is something really satisfying about slowly expanding the world. Thereâs a really great sense of discovery here, culminating with Star Road and the different Yoshi types (and also using Star Road to skip to the end of the game).
And while I love all this, it does mean itâs not as fun to replay as Mario 3, which also had more memorable levels in my opinion. This is a great game, and I love how they experimented with the Mario formula (especially considering how bland some of his modern games are), but it doesnât top Bros. 3 in my opinion.
BADLAND
Cool aesthetic, but the combination of wonky controls, auto-scrolling, and physics/trial-and-error puzzles that feel like theyâre from a mediocre 2009 indie game bounced me right off this.
DUET
What if Super Hexagon wasnât as good and also it was some kind of pretentious recruitment tool for a cult ran by someone whose only exposure to philosophy was Sophieâs World.
