π±π€ Received: February 10th, 2020 π±π€
π±π€ Written: April 18th-May 21st, 2022 π±π€
Alternate Title: Zool no Yume BΕken [ ⬤ ]
Year: 1992, 1993 | Developed by: Gremlin GraphicsPublished by: GameTek
Hello, gamers and readers, welcome to my blog,
Wasn't it amazing to hear the Star Light Zone theme at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics' opening ceremony (among other video game music)? I love it! ππ
while it may not be as fast-paced as the Blue Blur's numerous follow-ups would be and is simple by comparison, it is a fun classic that still holds up incredibly well to this day. News of its greatness made many a gamer curious and excited as it gave them an incentive to invest in Sega's latest console, the 16-bit based MegaDrive/Genesis, for it greatly helped boost its sales; if Sega's home conversions of Altered Beast and Golden Axe as well as Sega AM7's quintessential Disney platforming classic I Love Mickey Mouse: Fushigi no Oshiro DaibΕken/Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse didn't make a persuasive argument in favor of Sega's 16-bit powerhouse machine, then Sonic the Hedgehog most definitely did.
Available as an unlockable alongside eleven other Sonic Game Gear pertinent games on Sonic Team's Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut on the Nintendo GameCube
Sonic the Hedgehog's success also led to the creation for its 8-bit video game incarnation that same year which was spearheaded by none other than Yuzo Koshiro (who also composed its music) in the inaugural video game for his own development company Ancient that,
* And was the last game to be released for the Sega MegaDrive/Genesis' predecessor, the Master System, in North America in 1991
Screengrabbed while browsing Retro Gamer's archived article on the Sega Game Gear; highlights and basic red flag drawn by me, because yikes is that a bad look regardless of the time period... π¬
as well as the unfortunate circumstance of Sega's American (and European) divisions' attempt at advertising this handheld format through using personal attacks against Nintendo and their monochromatic Game Boy to try to get people to buy their colorful system (a tactic which they abandoned after some point, thankfully). Oh, those silly Western distributors of Sega's and their seeming disregard for mental health* with their casual ageism and ableism in the name of promoting a product. Disappointing that they thought it was a good idea to stoop to such callous lows. π* Mental health matters, and I will not listen to anyone who says otherwise; because the fact of the matter is there are certain lines that should simply never be crossed
He would even become the first video game character to appear as a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon two years after his debut
All that aside, however, Sonic Team's Sega 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog was massively successful to the point that it not only became the best-selling game in the console (aided further by the fact that it came as a pack-in title for the system after the fact) but also one of the best-selling video games of all time which for a first entry in a series is such an incredibly accomplishing feat. I don't think it hyperbolic to say that video games would be in a different place altogether if not for this '90s icon; 'course, the same could be said for any other video game character who debuted during this decade, but Sonic in particular left such an indelible mark in video game history for he's left such a huge impact in the industry and whose unparalleled success with his foray title would lead to a franchise that is still going to this day, plus it gave Nintendo's Mario a worthy competitor for awhile.And being the big hit it was, other companies would try to cash in on his popularity and success for they wanted their own cake and eat it too. One of the first to attempt to rival Sonic's speed-oriented gameplay was Gremlin Graphics.
Logo from MobyGames
Based on Sheffield and founded in 1984 by Ian Stewart and Kevin Norborn, this British video game developer was originally a computer store called Just Micro before establishing itself as a software house with their early hits comprising of Wanted: Monty Mole and Thing on a Spring, and would be known as the team behind the Lotus, Premier Manager, Top Gear, and Actua Sports series. Gremlin Graphics would be bought by Infogrames in 1999 until Infogrames closed down in 2003, with Gremlin's assets being acquired by Zoo Digital (later adopting the name Zushi Games) and Stewart's new company Urbanscan.
Image from GameFAQs
But back to Gremlin Graphics back when they were active: come 1992 their answer to Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog came in the form of Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension, the brainchild of George Allan who coded the game and thought up the idea following his previous game, Gremlin Graphics' Switchblade II, "having a lack of enemies" which he wound up criticized for. During development the initial idea was for "Pootz" (as was the initial name) to cast spells by collecting potions until they got changed into collectible powerups and for him to be a gremlin ninja who'd go by the name of Zool. Originally created for the Acorn Archimedes computer, Zool would also see a release on the Amiga, Atari-ST, Amiga CD32, and MS-DOS personal computers as well as the Game Boy, the Game Gear, the Sega Master System, the MegaDrive/Genesis, and, you guessed it,
Images from GameFAQs
the Nintendo 16-bit console as well. Programmed by Matthew Donkin, Ritchie Brannan, Paul Hiley, and Ashley Bennett and produced by Mark Glossop in 1993, this port would be released on the SNES in North America in January 1994 by GameTek (produced by Van Collins and production manager Sherry Kross), with the Japanese Super Famicom release Zool no Yume BΕken ("Zool's Dream Adventure") following suit that July 29th courtesy of Nissho Iwai Infocom Systems, and Gremlin Interactive themselves (as they would be known by that point) would release it in PAL SNES format at an unspecified date in 1994.
Image on the right from MobyGames
GameTek* was formed as a subsidiary for American-based I.J.E., Inc. where basically they acquired numerous licenses for television shows (such as Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune), sports entities, and child-oriented products as a means to "exploit these licenses in the software market" until they closed down due to bankruptcy in 1998; as for the Japanese company Nissho Iwai Infocom Systems the only other game I found that they were involved in was as the publisher of the Super Famicom version of Gremlin Graphics' Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing (but as Nigel Mansell F-1 Challenge).* GameTek also had the distinction of acting as the American publisher to Charybdis Limited's MS-DOS point and click title Spud!; I bring this up because YouTube was weird enough to recommend a video of its death compilations to me this past month, I clicked on it out of morbid curiosity, and I'm like "Oh my God, why are there so many gruesome deaths happening to a little kid?!? What the fudge!?!" π±
Image from GameFAQs
Special shout out to the European version for having a very awesome cover of the gremlin ninja kicking his way through the fourth wall shattering in his wake with "Zool" engraved in the sole of his shoes which is very compelling design... π and it disappoints me greatly that more often than not it was exclusively relegated to the PAL regional cover art and not elsewhere in the world too. π Nothing against Wendy Weber and Steve Curran's American cover, it's... fine--not bad, I just find it plain to look at plus it doesn't speak to me like the PAL cover does. I'm not saying that because I'm half-European, if that's what you're thinking, it just personally appeals to me more, but that's just my opinion.
Image from Wikipedia
It's worth pointing out that Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension was also sponsored by Chupa Chups, a Spanish lollipop and confectionary brand which was referenced in the game but had allusions to it all but removed for the American version (at least insofar as the NTSC SNES GameTek edition is concerned as that's what I'm covering). You may be surprised to learn (if you didn't already by this point) that its logo was designed in 1969 by none other than famed surrealist artist Salvador DalΓ.
Left: π΅ Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination π΅ | Right: Slide attacking that menacing gelatinous creature
In the sidescrolling platformer Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension you take control of the titular gremlin ninja for he's got an arsenal of moves at his disposal that will help him get by. You can run left and right as well as move along while hanging under a wire, duck down or hold down as you run in either direction to slide across which can double as a form of attack against a ground enemy in your path, cling on to a climbable surface or wall and climb up or down it,
Left: Zool channeling his inner Tsukikage from Irem's Saigo no NindΕ/Ninja Spirit by having a shadow ninja duplicate of himself | Right: Spinning sword attack used to defend against incoming bees
jump up in the air with the B button* with your altitude based on how lightly or how hard you pressed the button and fire your unlimited array of projectiles towards your foes (or in certain instances, inconspicuous destructible walls) by tapping Y* while on the ground or in midair or while ducking, do a continuous spinning sword attack to better fend off against airborne enemies while in midair whilst holding down the left shoulder button, and if you time it exactly right just as you run up towards a nearby wall with just the slightest amount of traction press the right shoulder button to perform an acrobatic backflip jump.* The default options for jump and fire are Y and B respectively, which is very odd for a Nintendo 16-bit platformer as I usually prefer it the other way around given the controller's setup, but luckily you can adjust them to your liking before starting the game proper
Left: Backflip wall jump | Right: If nothing else, this harrowing mission gives Zool quite the workout
Each land is divided into four segments, and the goal of each segment is to collect the requisite amount of collectibles scattered throughout prior to reaching the coveted exit represented by the Zool medallion (the amount needed, which you can see on the lower left corner, depends on the difficulty setting you're playing) which you'll be given a clue on where it is based on the arrow that is also in the same corner which kind of acts like a compass as it points in the proper direction (making it go haywire once you're there). Failure to collect the proper amount of items before reaching it will cause said medallion to be inactive until you gather more of the amount that's needed.
Left: Sloshing through a caramel liquid candy cane zone | Right: Face to face with a gigantic bee
A good chunk of the collectibles are out in the open for the taking and can easily be accessed while others require some thorough searching and a clever bit of ingenuity on your part. Outside of those, there are special sorts of items that will aid Zool in some capacity: an up arrow power-up to momentarily allow him to jump at a higher rate than normal, a bomb power-up to wipe out all present enemies onscreen, a shield power-up to momentarily render the gremlin ninja invulnerable to enemy attack, a black and white "Z" circle to temporarily summon a secondary shadow Zool, a clock icon to augment your allotted amount of time by a smidge, a 1up power-up to garner a new life, and upon taking out certain enemies there'll be a winged heart gradually floating upward which you can grab to replenish what health you've lost (six is the capacity, each red bar comprises of two hits).
Left: Being blown upward by the melody of the trumpet below | Right: I love how the sentient drum's oval membrane acts as a complete deflector for your projectiles should you attack it from the front, that is so clever
As the areas are large and designed with an open-ended nature to them, you'll occasionally come across a conveniently needed square token which you must stand in front of and fire at it in order to activate the checkpoint for when you lose a life. All throughout are various hazards to contend with and overcome like a multitude of enemies and/or their projectiles, wallcrawlers, spikes, and occasional electric sparks, plus you must reach the exit under the allotted time given. The fourth and final segment of the land, naturally, will culminate in a boss fight (and losing there will start the boss fight from the beginning).
Left: Drop down quickly before the spark on the wire reaches you | Right: Vintage '90s FM radio
The visuals by Adrian Carless, Paul Gregory, and Damon Godley are vibrantly colorful with each land being imaginatively designed and creatively distinctive than the last, and each area does enough visually to augment Zool's sense of atmospheric depth. I like how appropriately sugary-looking the land of sweets and candy are with every confectionary imaginable on display like jelly beans and candy canes with dazzling parallax scrolling clouds in the backdrop (some of which have got jawbreakers on them),
Left: Waiting for the live wire to stop sparking before ascending | Right: Bouncing ahead on drums
the land of electronics and musical instruments, dated though it may be due to its '90s aesthetic and sensibilities, is visually engrossing to look at with all known electronics of the decade like tune up radios with LED screens and VCRs and loud stereo systems along with a portable keyboard piano with messily entangled wiring adorning its surfaces, the mountainous land has got gigantic fruit and vegetables with the occasional pixelated foliage, the land of toys has got a quaint wall pattern with gigantic views of the outside through its window and gigantic light switches once in a while with its layout with large playing blocks and structure bound together by screws,
Left: Zool is such a grump that the pipe he's standing on refuses to blurt out musical notes like all around him... unless it's his standing there that is clogging the pipe in question and that's why it won't operate as it should | Right: Hanging on the side of the platform gazing at vinyl records
and the land of the tropics is sand-oriented with the cactuses that appear (some with a flailing spiked arm) with the stark contrast of the blue waters of the oasis in the background. Zool also makes very effective use of gradient filtering (like the pixelated orange foliage in mountain land and the ominously red and green ambiance set in the land of tools) and reflective surfaces in the backdrop (the electronics in the electronic land and the mountains mirrored in the blue lake of mountain land) to the subtlest degree imaginable but adds so much to the already atmospheric locales. I also adore the star-studded sky above amusement land and the bright neon lights seen in its backdrop.
Left: I didn't know breakable walls could bleed | Right: Now that's a rock guitar no one would dare want to mess with πΈ
I like how the opening cutscene is presented in the form of a comic, with the present panel being colored while the preceding one is faded and darkened; it reminds me of how Software Creations did something similar in the introduction for their Marvel Comics licensed platformer Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge. Zool has got a cool design with his pointy green ears and arms and legs, sleek black ninja gear, and scarlet red mask around his bright yellow eyes, and I like how his idle poses range from gearing into an attack stance or standing tall shaking his head at us if there's no danger around.
Left: Sliding down the creamy hill | Right: Fruit gathering
His running animation is fluid and I like the way he animates when climbing walls and when performing a backflip jump from a wall, and the collectible items all have a look and design prevalent to the current environment you are at: candy canes in candy land, remote controls and compact discs and vinyl records in electronics land, nuts and bolts in tool land, stuffed animals and marbles in toy land, and flowers in tropical land.
Left: That autumnal foliage sure is pixelated, huh? | Right: Skid
The same applies for the hordes of enemies you're forced to contend with, all having the most menacing of expressions: candy land's angry gelatin creatures and bothersome bees, electronics land's sentient floating cymbals and wide drums whose membranes can easily deflect your projectiles, toy land's blue and red pandas and indestructible army tanks (complete with stereotypical general hats on), and amusement land's sentient cotton candy and mallets as well as bumper cars, et al, and when you attack them they either split in two miniature versions of themselves (like the gelatin and jumping red tool enemies, for instance) or they shatter to pieces as if they were brittle.
Left: High above Zool is a giant Lifesaver candy | Right: Tree surfing time, perhaps you'll meet up with Disney's Tarzan?
While the bosses you fight at the end of each land may look immobile and don't have much in the way of animation (with, perhaps the exception of the one over at amusement land with the googly eyes) they more than make up for that with their huge stature as they ominously loom into the scene with imposing expressions and all have imaginatively creative (not to mention surreal) designs: like a threatening-looking flaming rock guitar, a slightly peeled open rotten banana with a spiked neck collar, a jackhammer with angry eyes in the bottom half of its body, and a flying cactus creature whose body is so sharp and prickly that it can't help but cry while simultaneously glare at you.
Left: That punk rocker banana is rotten to the core π | Right: Successfully performing another backflip jump
The music and sound effects for Zool were composed by Patrick "Pat" Phelan in one of the first video game scores he produced for Gremlin Graphics alongside Premier Manager and the Magnetic Fields-developed racing game Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge*. Phelan was into video gaming and music since he was very young, which began with his parents getting him a Commodore VIC-20 computer where he learned to write and program games at the age of 11, then two years later he got his first synthesizer, the Korg MS20, and learned how to program its patch bay which gave him a thorough understanding in the fundamentals of sound synthesis.* On the subject of Lotus III, Phelan's Zool soundtrack overlaps its soundtrack
Left: Leaping in the air after clinging on to a wall | Right: Sliding down an oily path
As he got older and graduated to the Commodore 64 there was a confluence between his love for sound and music and his obsession with gaming at the time--being influenced by the musical stylings of Ron Hubbard* and the late Ben Daglish he would go on to create music specifically for video games, thus launching his dream career when he joined Gremlin; over time he would take on other responsibilities and managed the audio department before taking on more senior creative roles. Phelan now works at Full Circle, a company he's long since set up after leaving Gremlin Graphics where he acts as a consultant and provides audio solutions to games, games design services, and music for TV.* Not the Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, it's sad that of all things I have to clarify to avoid any confusion that this is one of them
Left: Sliding under the nails sticking out | Right: Watch out for the drills protruding from within
Zool's music is catchy and engaging with a lot of variations in instrumentation based on the land you're at: candy land's theme has got a great wailing rock guitar riff, mountain and toy land's theme has got a fast-paced oriental flair, tool land's theme has got an atmospheric ambient undercurrent to it and builds up from it, the opening notes of the tropical land's theme homage those of the iconic theme from David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre would be proud) which then becomes very hard-hitting and bouncy (almost Capcom's Street Fighter II-esque in how it goes from normal to fast tempo later on) until eventually it throws in a little public domain Egyptian sound cue, and the theme for the land of electronics and amusement has got a lot of drums and percussion.
Left: Skidding on slippery oil | Right: Projectile splitting an enemy in two
The sound effects Phelan created are also solid across the board, like the broken plastic sound for any time the enemies you face shatter like brittle, the loud buzzes coming from the bee enemies, the authentic sound of the drums when you bounce on them and the drill sound for when they stick out from within the wall (which sounds like a buzzsaw), the bell sound for when the mallet bounces and hits it as you stand on it, and any time Zool takes damage and/or loses a life he grunts in a voice akin to that of gremlin (which is apropos given that's what he is and is the name of the company which gave birth to him--Gremlinception or something).
Left: The surrealness of this game's lands truly knows no bounds, that saw is coming from within an electric chainsaw | Right: Time to fight a giant jackhammer
Zool only gives you a limited amount of continues, which you can adjust from zero to five in the options screen before playing, and there are three difficulty settings, with each of them having variations in terms of how many collectible items you need to reach the goal (50 on easy, 75 on normal, and 99 on hard), how many lives you start off with (seven, five, and three) as well as how many enemies you'll have to contend with and the number of hits it takes to defeat the boss at the end of each land. It must be beaten in one sitting, but if you lose one continue you'll be taken back to the beginning of the land's segment (if you lost your last life at Level 4-2, for instance, then you'll begin anew from the beginning of Level 4-2) which is a fair and convenient continue system.
Screengrabbed while on The Cutting Room Floor's page for Zool's SNES version
When the game was released in Japan for the Super Famicom there are notable differences between the Nissho Iwai Infocom Systems and the NTSC SNES versions: it runs at a slightly slower speed than the GameTek version (but still is slightly faster than the PAL SNES version), the default controls were fixed so you don't have to adjust them prior to playing, there's a number system for your health rather than a bar system, the electronics land and the tropical land swapped the order in which you access them (so instead of the former being the second land you access it is now the penultimate one, and vice versa for the latter), and its lands featured a lot of cross-promotion for a multitude of Japanese products.
Screengrabbed while watching einokeino303's Amiga video playthrough of Zool 2 on YouTube
Following the success of Zool, plans for a sequel were laid in motion which would be released a year later in 1993. With the exception of composer Patrick Phelan, none of the people involved in its predecessor returned for the follow-up which this time was developed by The Warp Factory as Zool 2 incorporated new gameplay elements: you could take control of either Zool or his female counterpart Zooz who mostly shared the same controls but with subtle differences in their modes of attack and defense, and if you got enough bonus icons you could play a bonus game in the vein of Atari's Breakout featuring their two-headed pet Zoon acting as a paddle. Like its predecessor Zool 2 was well-received, some have even remarked it as an improvement, but alas its availability was very limited as it saw a release on the Amiga, Amiga CD32, and MS-DOS computers and saw an Atari Jaguar console* conversion by Imagitec Design, plus it was the last video game to be sponsored by Chupa Chups.
* Out of curiosity, I saw the price tag for Zool 2's Atari Jaguar edition (not triple digit, but not too unreasonable otherwise) and the Atari Jaguar itself (which costs a ridiculous sum by comparison, literally hundreds compared to the games which cost only a fraction of its price tag) on eBay, the obscene ratio between console price and game price designated for it made me give up on wanting an Atari Jaguar altogether, which is a shame because I do want to play Zool 2, but I don't think it'll happen anytime soon π
There would also be a couple young adult novels written by Stan Nicholls and Ian Edgington based on Zool the gremlin ninja in 1995, Cool Zool and Zool Rules, but outside of that there have been no more new appearances by him in any format and would continue to be the case until 2021 when Secret Mode released Zool Redimensioned, a remaster developed by Sumo Digital Academy, on Steam based on the Sega MegaDrive/Genesis version (which is also included as a bonus, sans the Chupa Chups references).
Image from MobyGames
Before I share my thoughts on Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension, let's discuss some bit of bizarre trivia first. In the early 2000's a British developer called Data Design Interactive pitched their idea for a 3D Zool platformer to the current rights owners of all things Zool, Zoo Digital Publishing. Reportedly they were bemused and were left unimpressed by the pitch that they pulled the rights, however Data Design was undeterred by this and proceeded to craft it as a standalone title. The game that it wound up becoming instead was
Screengrabbed while watching LongplayArchive's video of Ninjabread Man on YouTube
Ninjabread Man, originally released in Europe for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 but made available worldwide with the Nintendo Wii edition two years later. It was universally panned by pretty much everyone who played it as it was heavily criticized for its controls and camera system, not having a story, and for being incredibly short* and has since been widely regarded as one of the worst video games of all time. Data Design Interactive themselves also gained infamy for recycling and reskinning Ninjabread Man a few more times; they halted all projects in 2009 but would not become defunct for another three years.* The playthrough I saw lasted roughly twenty minutes... for a 2007 release, I'm genuinely shocked that a game would have that kind of brevity
And is it me, or did it sound like one of Ninjabread Man's background tracks plagiarized Ripper Roo's theme from Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot? Naughty Data Design, naughty!
Left: Those toy blocks spell "Tot" (or "Toot", depending how you view it) | Right: It's a free for all for adorable animal plushies
The first I've learned of Zool was when I was a teenager back in the 2000's, when I stumbled across it as a playable flash game on the internet (whenever I was on the computer as a younger teenager I liked to play flash games online); I didn't get very far in it in the one time I played it there, but I recall it aesthetically looking like it was based on a Sega 8-bit edition, and around the same time I learned via the Video Game Critic's website* of its sequel when he covered it for the Atari Jaguar. As I got older I learned that the first Zool received an SNES version, which I saw a gameplay video of candy land on YouTube out of curiosity, and it did seem like a very colorful fast-paced platformer (plus, ninjas are cool), but I wouldn't get to experience for myself until February of 2020.
* Y'know, the same one-paragraph format review website where he somehow conflated Scrooge McDuck's voice in WayForward Technologies' DuckTales: Remastered to be that of Sean Connery's instead of Alan Young who it actually was (RIP both), which made me give up on his website because that level of misinformation was upsetting (hardly the only one he made, mind, but it made me question if he had done any research before typing it up) plus Scrooge McDuck is one of my favorite Disney characters (his stories in the comics are ace); I mean, this was years ago, I don't know if he's corrected his information since or if he was told he made a mistake, but I find value in doing research and double (if not triple) checking said research to make sure it is accurate whenever I'm reviewing something
Left: Spinning his sword in the land of toys | Right: Jumping up to grab that giant panda plushie πΌ
Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension is a fascinating platformer in terms of its visual concept. If there's a word to describe the experience, "surreal" might be the appropriate one to use as each land has got a lot of creative ingenuity about them and I like the way that the enemies and collectible items match with and blend in to their respective environments. It is pure eye candy, and with each theme change as you go from land to land it retains its sense of freshness about it.
Left: Finding myself between two toy tanks | Right: Remember those Etch a Sketches from the olden days? Those were fun to play with as a kid once in awhile
I like the character Zool, his gameplay is slick and nimble for it is solidly responsive, plus I like how agile he is and the array of moves at his disposal, be it short-ranged with his slides, hopping and bopping, and spinning sword attack or long-ranged with his projectiles. Those backflips that you perform after you run towards the wall can be real lifesavers when it comes to surpassing certain rows (or columns) of spiked obstacles when performed with exact timing and acute precision. All those moves are unspeakably crucial to your progress.
Left: Marbles, marbles, everywhere! | Right: Precariously wire hanging across
A good chunk of the areas you peruse through are designed in such an open-ended manner that you can explore to your heart's desire, pretty much, and by firing projectiles towards certain walls you will open up a pathway that only initially appeared to be inaccessible (which is helpful to know if you need to acquire more collectible items and specific power-ups). The areas could also be so vast too and in certain instances easy to get lost in if you're not careful, which is why it's a good thing that there are plenty of checkpoints scattered about (which you can activate more than once in the event that you find yourself backtracking, which is very convenient). And the arrow acting as your compass in the lower left corner is of massive help as well.As video games that tried to compete with Naoto Ohshima and Yuji Naka's iconic fast blue hedgehog go, I do find the British-oriented Zool to be the more enjoyable one of them all and the most successful of those that made the attempt to cash in on Sega's killer app on the Sega MegaDrive/Genesis.
Elsewhere in North America, designer Michael Berlyn of Accolade came up with an idea for a game that rivaled Sonic the Hedgehog after having stumbled across it and finding himself playing it obsessively in the span of a week to find the inspiration for his idea. That idea came in the form of the anthropomorphic bobcat donning a white shirt with an exclamation point called Bubsy whose cartoonish antics paid homage to the classic Looney Tunes shorts.
* And not Rob Paulsen like I thought originally, but he did voice him in the animated pilot and Bubsy II
* John and Ste Pickford have gone on record to cite Bubsy as the square cause for people overlooking their cult classic platformer, Software Creations' Plok, at the time and I don't think they ever forgave him for that, but to be fair I'm sure there were other factors that played a role in its initial obscurity (like an oversaturated video game market replete to the brim with platformers to choose from)
** And I don't just mean the ones given to you after every third chapter, as The Cutting Room Floor and GameFAQs have passwords for every chapter
Bubsy can celebrate the fact that twenty-six years after his debut, his sixth iteration Choice Provisions' Bubsy: Paws on Fire! would ultimately be the best game featured in his name... though to say that's not really a high bar to cross would be a gross understatement
I guess in the end it didn't really matter what your feelings on Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind were in one way or another since the preceding hype ensured that it would be a success regardless, for it wound up becoming a franchise in its own right. I neither hate Bubsy nor his first avenue, I do find it amusing and I do get some enjoyment out of it in a guilty pleasure sort of way once you know what to do, it just depends on the mood, but on the whole I find the game tolerable at best (without the passwords it would be a different story)... I cannot say the same for what immediately followed. It is a strange hexalogy, though, with each installment constantly changing developers, direction, music composers, and voice actor for the titular bobcat; consistency does not seem to be Bubsy's strong suit, if you ask me.
* I have not played the European SNES version Pop'n TwinBee: Rainbow Bell Adventures, but I'm fully aware of how Konami changed it to be a more linear experience, probably to save on cost for localization
With its fun and enjoyable gameplay, adorable pastel-toned visuals, lightheartedly cute charm, multitude of secrets, different number of endings, and sheer amount of exhilarating replay value, TwinBee: Rainbow Bell Adventure is as great a spinoff installment to the TwinBee cute'em series as it is great on its own merit. One of my favorites from Konami.
Everyone, do the Happy Bee!
Left: Eight-way missiles launched by that toy robot | Right: Climbing
If you look hard enough you'll come across a circular "S" item which will grant you access to the present land's bonus segment once you defeated the current boss and serves as a decent break from the normal platforming routine. In said bonus segments you guide Zool around in his spaceship in a horizontal shoot'em up manner through, I guess, the blood stream as you shoot at red blood cells and have to maneuver around bones and easily destructible surfaces which is finished when you either make it through or crash your ship into something. It's like Konami's Salamander/Life Force's first stage if it was even more surreal and insane sans the golem brain boss at the end.
Left: Deadly flailing cactus arm π΅ | Right: Sliding across as a means to defeat certain enemies
I find it ideal to hold the left shoulder button any time to make Zool jump up in the air as he performs his sword spin attack as it can easily decimate airborne foes, and it can immediately vanquish certain ground foes that are big in size where your normal projectiles simply split them into two smaller versions of themselves. You could even fire off your nigh unlimited projectiles while you're simultaneously spinning your sword in midair if you so choose.
Left: Doing yet another backflip jump | Right: Tipping at the edge
And while Zool does largely control well, there are moments when you'll have to be careful to control your sense of traction since you don't want him to go too fast lest you absolutely have to, there is this one moment in tool land where you must jump from one side of a platform and carefully maneuver yourself in midair to cling on to the other side of it so as to not take damage from spikes at the top, you'll have to be mindful of the drills from within when climbing up certain walls in tool land as well,
Left: Collecting a colorful assortment of flowers along the way | Right: It's not often you find a boss that simultaneously keeps a straight serious face while also looking physically pained what with the tears in their eyes, guess its spiked nature doesn't aid matters
and there are certain lands where you'll have to pay attention to your surroundings because of certain obstacles rising from the ground and receding back (such as the stereo in electronics land, carrots who spew out projectiles at you in mountain land, and giant clown heads in amusement land) which is something to keep in mind if you don't want to lose health from colliding onto them easily; it's okay, take your time. The boss fights themselves are manageable when you figure out where to avoid their projectiles and figure out their pattern (so long as it's not jumping or firing you can walk through the toy robot boss' mono-leg), and they put up a good fight on hard mode.
Left: Ding | Right: Scaling a tower
Any time you reach a boss everything from your score, time remaining, and number of lives will be rendered invisible much like whenever you reached a boss in Konami's Nintendo 8-bit converison of Salamander/Life Force and when you confront the final boss in Quintet's ActRaiser 2, except for your health (or what's left of it). It's not really a big issue in this case unless you forgot how many lives you had (what with focusing on collecting items and contending with a barrage of enemies) should it be a difficult boss, particularly the rotten banana and prickly cactus bosses.
Left: *quack quack* "Did you see the new water starter PokΓ©mon? Sure resembles Donald Duck quite a bit, huh?" *quack quack* | Right: Greeted by an antagonistic bumper car
And while I do enjoy largely playing this game, there are times when it feels like there are so many enemies than you'd normally see in a game of this genre (which is not something I normally say about platformers, but leave it to Zool to challenge that notion, I guess), most of which respawn if you left a certain segment of an area and then came back after the fact (some of the bees in candy land appear immediately after you disposed of one) and considering there are obstacles to overcome (namely spikes) and/or projectiles you have to evade, not to mention making your way to the exit on time, it can admittedly feel like the proceedings get a bit chaotic when that happens.
Left: Zool the invincible ninja | Right: Provoking the wrath of a sentient mallet with a stare down
Another thing to point out is that whenever Zool runs and jumps he takes up approximately two-thirds of the screen (similarly to how YΕ«ko does in Shin-Nihon Laser Soft's Valis II) which, if you're not careful, might result in not seeing an enemy until it's too late which is why you should always be on the defensive and not go too too fast lest the coast is clear (either fire your projectiles, do the sword spin attack, or slide across to do the enemies in). Being careful means you're less likely to lose health by carelessly running into enemies, but luckily the action in these open-ended lands is fast paced so you don't have to worry about the game losing its sense of fun and flow.
Left: Destroying property in the name of progressing through the area | Right: Confronting the surreal googly-eyed evil that is Krool
It might not hold a candle to Sonic Team's Sonic the Hedgehog in terms of speed-based platformers (much like the Blue Blur's other competition) but considering the other options available, this game is the closest it comes to achieving the 1991 classic's level of quality and enjoyment. While not without its problems, Zool is enjoyably surreal and solid fast-paced ninja fun while it lasts. I recommend it if you're a fan of action platformers.
Zooz: "Our work here is done."
Zool: "But you haven't done anything!"
Zooz: "Sure, I have. I... offered moral support."
Zool: π
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My Personal Score: 7.0/10
d(^-^)bTO EACH THEIR OWNd(^-^)b
● In the past whenever I reviewed more than one game from the same year that celebrated its milestone anniversary, I would use the same anniversary ribbon I drew. But this time, I figured I would try to add variety and make a different 30th anniversary ribbon for this game in lieu of uploading the same one I awarded Nova Games' Xandra no DaibΕken: Valkyrie to no Deai/Whirlo, and I will do the same for when I review more 1992 games.
● I wanted to make an effort to not have the "Paused" message show up much (if at all) for the screenshots I took of this game, but whenever I captured a screenshot there were certain ones where I noticed only after the fact that the "Paused" message unscrambled back to the score on both corners of the screen randomly when you unpause (hence why certain times letters got replaced by numbers in the first second after the fact the moment). I picked the best screenshots I worked with, I think, even there were certain good ones I wanted to use (if not for it completely saying "Paused" 100%).
● I apologize if the last three paragraphs of this review proper weren't as well-written as all the paragraphs before them, I was struggling to find the right words to use (I would've gotten it out earlier too if not for that).
● Irrelevant to video games: while it was free to watch on YouTube, I watched the last movie directed by Mel Brooks, Dracula Dead and Loving It. I've only seen five movies directed by him, but for what it was I thought it was fine (not great, but not awful like its critical reception suggested either... if Seltzerberg "comedies" existed in 1995, I believe people would've been more lenient on this film because I don't think critics realized how low the comedy/parody genre would stoop back then until those arrived). The cinematography and matte paintings were really striking (the lighting, too), I liked Brooks' straight take on Abraham Van Helsing, Leslie Nielsen was an amusing Dracula (we truly lost a comedic treasure, RIP), I thought it was great to see Lysette Anthony outside of Peter Yates' Krull (at least she wasn't dubbed over this time) and I liked Amy Yasbeck in both this and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (I found it interesting how both Mina and Lucy swapped hair color), and I also enjoyed whenever it spoofed Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (a movie I love). There were a few jokes I found chuckle-worthy (the Mina/Essie scene, "She's Italian??", Dracula's daymare sequence); I think there are worse comedies you could watch.
Happy 30th Anniversary, Zool, you earned it!!!! π₯³
Thank you for reading my review, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think (neither spam nor NSFW is allowed); hope you have a great day, be a kind human, and take care! π
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