Marko (GEN) Review

Received: October 13th, 2015 / Written: September 2nd-5th, 2019

Alternate Title: Marko's Magic Football [ ◯ ]

Year: 1993, 1994 | Developed by: The Kremlin

Published by: Domark Software

Not many people have talked about, let alone heard of this today's game, so let's talk about the real obscurity that is Marko, or as it was known in European circles as Marko's Magic Football due to what the sport is generally known as in that continent (particularly the United Kingdom).  ⚽

Image from GameFAQs

Originally made for the Game Gear in 1993 by a company called The Kremlin, a developing company that was fully salaried and owned by the publisher Domark Software, this idea by Mark Strachan produced by Warren Mills, Jolyon Myers, Darren Anderson, and Gary Patino would see a MegaDrive/Genesis incarnation the following year in 1994--and since the Sega 16-bit cartridge version is the only version of the game I played, I'll be exclusively talking about it.

In the toy factory inside Sterling Tower, its owner Colonel Brown has concocted an evil plan:

with the help of a crazed scientific genius, he's created a substance that can turn people and animals into sludge monsters.  With it, Colonel Brown could take over the world.

Here to witness this is a boy named Marko who's caught wind of the evil plan, and once his soccer ball gets doused with that substance it starts to become magically imbued.  Marko saw a great advantage with this, for Colonel Brown was going down.

Summoning the ball

In the sidescrolling platformer Marko you control the titular boy who can attack enemies with his soccer ball (football in European terms).  With Marko you can move left and right, duck down which will enable you to peer below you, and on a handful of occasions in certain stages you may find yourself climbing a rope or chain or a ladder up and down.  The default controls are B to jump with the altitude dependent on how hard you pressed the button, holding down the A button to run left and right (and should you press down during your run you'll briefly do a body slide),

Kick at the seagull

and finally with the C button you can kick the ball and summon it by holding the button down at any time (provided you're on level ground).  With the soccer ball there are different actions you can commit to it especially as it can bounce off of enemies and ricochet off of walls; like the kick from your stationary position, the kick while moving or running which will make it fly at an angle, by holding down the C button next to it while holding up once Marko will bounce it in the air and if you press the button again at that point he'll do a flip kick,

Climbing up the stairs in the sewers

otherwise if you press up again while holding the button he'll balance the ball on his head (and launch it upward should you jump in this position), and last but not least you can bounce on it like a trampoline by holding down the B button (with each bounce launching you higher with the fourth bounce being the highest you can reach).  Littered in the stages are stars to collect (for getting a hundred of them will earn you a life), cans attached to balloons which you can separate from and then kick for points specific to the stage,

Vanquish that ghost 👻

a heart to replenish one portion of health that you lost, and if you look thoroughly you'll come across a Tesla orb which gives you a life.  Once in awhile you'll find yourself at a checkpoint once you're taken a picture of by his... mom?  His supporter?  🤔  Not sure what her relation to Marko is, but she does pop up here and there, and if you lost a life in one way or another after she snapped a photo of you then you'll pick up right from that spot.

Tipping while waiting for the platform

Also sprinkled throughout these stages are a variety of enemies that Marko has to contend with, for many of them can only be taken out with the magic soccer ball (with the bigger enemies requiring more than one hit to subdue them) for if he is touched by them (or their projectiles) then he'll lose one bit of health.  Once in awhile there are special power-ups that will aid Marko for a brief amount of time represented by a pair of shoes which can be picked up by pressing down while beside them, and you can tell which does what based on their color:

Running

one green pair of shoes will temporarily render you invulnerable to enemy contact so you can phase through them without fail during this moment, another green pair will cause an onscreen wipeout which will take out all enemies that were onscreen at that moment but unfortunately takes out the helpful items that were in that same screen out in the process (including the stars and healthy hearts), and finally by equipping the cyan pair of shoes should you hold down the C button then

Wow, just look at Marko's face there: he's gone full on psychopath, ha ha… 😅 haaaaaaaa, what the fudge is this game??  😖  I thought I was playing a soccer-themed game aimed at general audiences

Marko will pull out and fire from a tommy gun ahead of or above him (in stationary mode) where its bullets are not only powerful but can phase through solid barriers also until the ammunition is fully run out, meaning the soccer ball is out of commission during these moments.

Disseminate that sludge can

Whenever you start the game and whenever you resume from a checkpoint or beginning of the present stage you have a health of three, but should it be depleted fully that leaves you on your last legs making you incredibly vulnerable until you get a heart power-up for if you get hit then you'll lose a life.  You'll also lose health if you land on spikes or get damaged by obstacles like coal and extending flames, but if you land on a pool of sludge or water then it's an insta kill for Marko for he'll drown.

Sewer sludge

If you lose all your lives then it's game over for you and you'll be brought back to the title screen as there are no continues to use, but fortunately Marko is not required to be played through in one sitting for there is a password system.  After beating most stages you'll be shown a password in the map screen which comprises of all twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, requiring anywhere from three to eight characters depending on what it is.  On GameFAQs there are passwords for all stages past the first one, including ones not explicitly mentioned in-game.

Destroy all the sludge cans in this stage

The backgrounds by Tony West, Jolyon Myers, and Matthew Hicks are all solidly designed and the colors are well chosen: the color green especially is highly emphasized and goes well with the sludge theme not just in regards to certain enemies but also pools of sludge and sludge slightly protruding from the sludge cans, and yellows from Marko's hair and shirt are very vibrant.  What caught my eye the most is the pixelated look of the various backdrops

Take out that construction worker

(and obstructive pipe foreground in the second stage) which I felt was a curious yet interesting stylistic choice, plus there is an effective amount of parallax scrolling which gives this game a sense of visual depth (including outside the windows in the final stage set in the toy factory).  Tony West's design for Marko is goofy and cartoony, which is fitful for the tone, plus his animations are smooth (especially with his hair flowing in the wind as he moves as well as his turning animation while running) and expressive.

Climbing up the rope

Jolyon Myers and Jaid Mindang worked on the rest of the character designs, and they are just as smoothly animated and cartoonishly goofy as Marko is.  Among the enemy roster that you have to contend with there are constables, ghosts, construction workers, men with flamethrowers, meddlesome rodents, red hedgehogs, bees, children on bouncing balls, clowns, toy tanks and biplanes, and of course a variety of green sludge monsters (including tall ones that briefly morph into sludge contsables, sludge dragons, and certain tiny sludges that turn into ticking time bombs if you get close to them which will result in an explosion of sludge), et al.

Colonel Brown looks villainous enough when you face him, the final epilogue as Marko watches the toy factory crumble followed by sunrise gives off a Konami's Akumajō Dracula/Castlevania vibe, and there's some bizarre elements that don't necessarily impede you but is bizarre nonetheless like occasional UFOs for points and in certain stages appearances by Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk (capturing the caricatured likeness of a younger William Shatner) who phases in here and there.  😕  I don't know, I guess The Kremlin division known as The Cartoon Mavericks (comprised of Myers, West, and Mindang, named for their affinity for the true cartoon animation principles) decided to throw in a random Star Trek reference to spice things up.

Leaping towards balloons 🎈

Marko's soundtrack was composed by Jolyon Myers (who has Amiga-based credits such as Audio Visual Magic's The Hunt for Red October, Atari Games' ThunderJaws, and Tengen's R.B.I. Baseball 2/Two) with Mike Ash (which part of me sincerely doubts is a real name) serving as the Sega 16-bit cart version's music conversion, and the music suits the given atmospheres well and is energetic in its own right.  The theme that plays in suburbia during the practice, first, third, and eighth stages sounds catchy and free spirited; the second stage theme in the cellar is a bit intimidating in style; the sewers theme in the fourth through sixth stages is menacingly fast-paced;

Heads up

the seventh stage theme in the industrial zone has got an adventurously bouncy flair to it signaling that you're halfway there; the forest theme in the ninth and twelfth stages are atmospherically foreboding yet playful; the circus theme in the tenth and eleventh stages is... well, circus-y in nature; and the final stage set in the toy factory has got an epically supercharged theme with a good sense of finality in its composition.  The boss theme is relentlessly action-packed, and the ending theme is rewarding in areas but carefree in others.

Ball about to hit Pinky head on

Jolyon Myers and Mike Ash also provided the game's plethora of sound effects which sound more pronounced and certain key ones disabled the music for a short second; some sound examples are the kicking of the soccer ball, bouncing on the ball via a trampoline, the photographic snapshot any time you reach a check point, the cats' meow any time they're attacked by the ball, a cuckoo sound when you get a heart, the destruction of the sludge cans, and the buzzing of the bees, et al.  In the options screen you can choose to change the game's controls to your liking if the default settings don't suit you, choose whether to have the music and/or sound effects enabled or disabled, access the sound test, view the credits, input the password to continue your progress,

or turn on Marko's backyard which will grant you access to a small practice session so you can learn to accustom to the controls if you haven't already until you reach the end goal, by which case the game truly begins.

Image from GameFAQs

1994 also saw a release of Marko's Magic Football on Sega's MegaDrive CD-based add-on, the Mega-CD, but only for European markets.  An American Sega CD-based version wasn't made at the time, but in 2004 Good Deal Games (an American-based company that developed and/or published content for the Sega CD from 2000 to 2006) secured the rights to release a belated American release of Marko for this format.

Image from GameFAQs

There was also a version of Marko's Magic Football developed by Domark for the SNES that was published by Acclaim in 1995, but only for European consumption and is the only take on the game that was never released in America.  From what little I could gather, apparently you could have Marko balance himself on the ball and there was another way to recall it to you, but considering the limited amount of screenshots I've seen for it online and the fact that (with the exception of the audio tracks) there's no extensive footage of the Nintendo 16-bit incarnation on YouTube at all, I can only take their word for it.  Really bizarre if you ask me; perhaps the SNES edition came and went with little fanfare in very limited distribution.

That man will eat your ball if you kick it his way

I remember having first played Marko as a kid while visiting one of my American cousins who owned a Genesis; I didn't play too much of it on account that for one I largely played Treasure's Dynamite Headdy and BlueSky Software's Desert Demolition starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote (the latter of which I remember enjoying a lot at the time, but haven't it played since)

Balancing the ball on Marko's head

and for another reason I wasn't very good at playing it as I never got past the first stage.  😅  But as limited as my childhood experience with it was I did remember how cartoony and expressive it was, and I decided to purchase my own copy on October 2015 that I could play on the RetroGen cartridge (my only way of playing physical Genesis cartridges at the time) but could only get to the seventh stage, but I got to appreciate it more on a visual level once I got to experience it on my recently purchased Genesis console at the end of July 2019 and progressed further directly on the console and was the second game I beat directly on the console after Travellers Tales' Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse.

If the idea of a boy going around attacking enemies with his soccer ball/football sounds familiar, that's probably because you're acquainted with Krisalis Software's 1993 Amiga title Soccer Kid in one form or another--which was also available on the the Nintendo 16-bit console (the American SNES version retitled The Adventures of Kid Kleets), the MS-DOS, the Amiga CD32, the notoriously expensive 3DO (the Japanese version being known as Great Soccer Kid), a belated 2000 Atari Jaguar release, Windows Mobile and Game Boy Advance versions in 2002, and had a 2003 PAL-exclusive PlayStation One release in commemoration of its tenth anniversary--

Not sure whether to consider this cleverly ingenious or incredibly distasteful (given his passing a decade ago), but on the other hand the game is replete with one-dimensional stereotypes, sooo make of that what you will

as they pretty much share a similar gameplay structure and conceit (right down to summoning the ball at will and doing several tricks with it), exaggerated caricatures, not to mention both these games are crackpot levels of insane as the world has lost its mind as everyone is out to get a little boy obsessed with soccer/football who's got the world on his shoulders without any adult supervision.  These games make no sense!  😓

Hey, hold up now, he's a kid!  😟

Perhaps a bit more so in Marko's case, if that's even possible.  Aside from the aforementioned abundance of UFOs situated in random spots, the fact that this sports-themed adventure game involves a power-up that has Marko fire off from a tommy gun with a psychotic expression on his face, and that random Captain Kirk cameo, there's the fact that the checkpoints are represented by a woman taking a photo of him, but who is she taking the photos for (if she's not related to him in any way)?

Disassemble that sludge-spewing tank

Or how about the fact that she has a tendency to pop up in random locations without any explanation, including in dangerous locations like the sewers and the forest, even at one point situated at the top of an upper platform with seemingly no way of safely getting down from there?  Why are there gigantic hamburgers lodged in random spots in the sky?  Obviously there are forces working for Colonel Brown, but what of the ones that operate of their volition?  They're still attacking you regardless, but what's their gain from doing that?

Practicing in the pixelated forest

And yes, I know this game isn't meant to be taken at face value, that's clearly by The Kremlin's intention, but there is no sense of internal logic throughout the proceedings.  Marko stumbled upon Colonel Brown's plans which is how he got his ball magicked up in the first place after having been doused by his substance, but no context was given for what he doing there.  Did he get out without being noticed?  In this game's case that's a whole big never mind.  So that's that for this game's weirdness value.  So who exactly is Jolyon Myers, and why does his name show up often in the credits?

He was one of the key members of The Cartoon Mavericks (of which the only credit is this game, go figure), having worked on the animation, additional backgrounds, music score and sound effects, game design, character designs, produced, and acted as public relations porter for Marko/Marko's Magic Football.  That's eight credits Jolyon Myers has got going for this game, which pretty much makes Marko his baby.

"Take that!"

There is a goofy lighthearted charm about the game that does harken back to more innocent unironic and unambiguous times, and the cartoony style is endearing on an aesthetic level for playing Marko does feel like you're playing an interactive animated show (one that is not based on a preexisting property), plus I also enjoy the soundtrack.  It's clear from watching the animation and expressiveness that they're passionate about cartoony animation, and as an animation enthusiast myself I commend The Kremlin for that.  I only wish that this game was as fun as it looked.  😞

Pop it

Well, to be fair, it does start off fun for the first seven stages, some rough edges notwithstanding, but it's when you reach the eighth stage that the proceedings start to become less fun sometimes to the point that it feels annoying, tedious, repetitive, and frustrating at points, if not a combination of the four--and the reason that is stems from the game's lack of polish in terms of its controls and structure.  It's playable, but there are moments when the detailed animation tends to get in the way of the gameplay:

Clown business  🤡

the jumping mechanics are rather wonky, particularly if you're changing position in midair after making the jump, if you're planning on jumping right after turning around while running then it will not occur until the full turn is made which can be a bit intrusive and inconvenient if you're trying to evade a projectile or enemy on time but can't, same thing if you're climbing a ladder in which case you have to wait until you fully climb to the top to move left and right;

Bouncing upward

the collision detection is extremely faulty in regards to sustaining damage from projectiles headed towards you in a diagonal direction, because there'll be times it's a pixel or two away from Marko as he ducks or jumps above it and yet he's still taking damage from it, but the biggest offender is the knockback effect which is often an obnoxious element when used in certain platformers but in Marko's case manages to be insufferable on account that there's not really much invincibility time with each hit taken, for one,

What a sunset

but should you have been damaged by an enemy while in midair then you'll be knocked backward for a tiny bit until suddenly you lose all sense of momentum meaning you'll fall straight down and the worst part is that you cannot move until you land on the ground (largely felt in one or both of the forest stages)--and that's if you don't fall right down on the sludge pool or water on account that Marko can't swim (all while looking at Marko's stunned animation on repeat until he hits the ground, how did anyone consider this a good idea??).  😣

Enjoy this nightmare fodder, kiddies!

This is what you're going to see a lot until you learn to adapt to the stage layout and enemy placement, I just wish there was a sense of accessibility and leeway.

Left screenshot from MobyGames

If the Sega 16-bit version is anything to go by, the Game Gear original must require an inordinate amount of blind leaps of faith to progress given Marko's size compared to the screen room around him.  I mean, how can you see anything there?  😐

Rope bridge gap, where you must jump and

body slide in order to stay on the other side

of it after sustaining damage from that damn

inconveniently placed hedgehog

Basically the goal is to attack enemies from a distance, and that's if the ball goes in the direction you want and doesn't get punctured by spikes and flame.  For the most part your goal is to reach the end or machine at the end of said stage that will grant you access to the next one, but for a couple of stages you must search and destroy all of the sludge cans in order to turn on the machine at the end because if you reach it while it's off then nothing will happen.  There are only two boss fights: the first of which is the tank at the end of the eighth stage which is pretty easy, which sets up the notion that the subsequent one, against Colonel Brown,

is the exact opposite of easy... well, at least from the outset.  Colonel Brown is wearing a rocket-powered suit and occasionally fires three lasers at you which can only be avoided if you jump above them or when you do a body slide, because they will hurt you if you duck normally; not to mention that he fires them at a rapid rate that jumping over each one individually is out of the question.  Basically taking him head on is risky and may drain out your health and lives quick, but there is a safe spot that you can get down to where Colonel Brown will never access and when it's time to attack there's your chance, rinse and repeat.  So rather than relying on skill to defeat him like any competently made game would, this game's suggesting you to use the easy way out to prolong your survival.  🙄  Well that cheapens things.

But the most damning thing is that after all is said and done, this platformer with a structure and gameplay that could have benefited from so much polish, Marko has the audacity to imply a future endeavor with this character--and yet, bizarrely enough, the way the epilogue caps things off manages to put the game in a corner and seemingly negate it.  Was that a joke, then?  Was this entire game a joke?  🤨  Considering this was among the last games The Kremlin worked on, if this was in their genuine interest to do so (not to mention the game diving into the depths of obscurity) then the joke was on them since it never happened.  That's sad, and not for the reasons it's usually sad.

Avoid that sludge snake's projectile

But the thing that makes me a little more sad about Marko is that I genuinely wanted it to be better than The Adventures of Kid Kleets; I wanted a Soccer Kid knockoff to be better than the OG Soccer Kid, but countless lost lives and continues in the second half (not aided by Colonel Brown's boss setup) made me start realizing that I was only deluding myself.   Despite some rough edges it had promise and potential, and unlike Krisalis Software's game this one actually gave an explanation for the soccer ball to become magic whereas in there it's magic for reasons; plus I was starting to consider if The Adventures of Kid Kleets (which I got around 2011, I think), before having revisited it for the first time in years, was incredibly crackpots in hindsight--and it is.

I can't imagine anyone from the video game industry reads my video game reviews, but I felt like apologizing anyway

But while I don't consider that game great either and does itself feel cheap in areas (especially with the repeated move, stop, attack method of things since you can't afford to go too fast), it's at least better made and better structured with solid collision detection and has got a semblance of replay value and is slightly more fun to play, which is more than I can say for this game.  I'm sorry Matt Furniss, I'm sorry Shaun Hollingworth, I'm sorry Neil Adamson, I'm sorry Nigel Little, I'm sorry Krisalis Software, I wanted today's title to be superior to yours and I was wrong.  😔

Of the (presently speaking) twenty-two physical Genesis cartridges I own Marko is the weakest by far in my opinion, personally I had more enjoyment playing Wolf Team's largely derided Earnest Evans, which I honestly like and find to be a fun guilty pleasure (just look at that ragdoll animation).  😄  I'm not saying it's a great game by any means, and I hesitate to say it's good, but I do admit that it is an acquired taste and its enjoyment value is consistent once you get accustomed to the controls and get past the otherwise unappealing in-game sprite, plus Motoi Sakuraba's soundtrack is excellent.  🙂

Flip kick

Marko did start out fun despite some rough edges, but the problem with Marko is that there comes a point later on when the proceedings feel cheap and The Kremlin were focused on making a game that looked good rather than a game that was good.  I understand Jolyon Myers and company put their hearts into the animation, and it is good animation, but the fault lies in the programming done by Warren Mills, Michael Carr, Chris West, and Paul Margrave (and questionable game design by the other team members) for all Marko needed to be good or somewhat wholesomely fun was a lot of polish, but they couldn't do that--quality over quantity is what they should've worked with.  If you want to play a game with this formula, I say stick with Soccer Kid (whatever format), but don't expect a masterpiece out of that title.  If there are people that liked this game, that's fine, more power to them.  But to me Marko isn't a bad or terrible game, for I really wanted to like it, but because of its cheap structure and unpolished nature I found this venture to heavily amount to a disappointing foul.

My Personal Score: 5.0/10

d(^-^)bTO EACH THEIR OWNd(^-^)b

● "Radnor Road", huh?  Guess this game takes place somewhere near or around Philadelphia if that's what they were referring to.

● This game has three quality tester credits.  Uhh huh, riiiiight, good one, Marko!  😒

Thank you for reading my review, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think (neither spam nor NSFW allowed); hope you have a great day, take care!

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Wait, Marko has friends?  Since when?