In
the day time, she's a maid, at night, she's a swinger| Mischief Makers (Jap - Yuke Yuke Troublemakers!) |
| From the pairing of SNES maestros Enix and Megadrive gurus Treasures
comes…a 2D platformer.
No, come back, come back it’s not all bad, in fact it’s not bad at all. Read on… |
| In a scenario that could only come from the folks at Treasure, you, the player, assume control of Cyber-Inter Galactic Cyborg Marina (a robot maid), who has the amazing ability to (wait for it) shake people. After settling on the planet Clancer in a spaceship (that looks remarkably like a house) with her creator, Marina receives an unfriendly welcome as a legion of the planet’s inhabitants proceed to smash up the house and kidnap the poor prof. |
| In
the day time, she's a maid, at night, she's a swinger |
| "Sounds like a rescue the princess/girlfriend/professor type-plot to me" you say. Congratulations on your perceptiveness. Fortunately, the plot is as predicatable as this game gets as your heroine is thrown into a bizzare alien world of strangely-faceted people and creatures; some friendly, some hostile, some Elvis-a-likes (true). |
| Initial perceptions of the game are deceiving, as the first few levels show little in the way of graphical flair and action. Thankfully, they serve only as an introduction to the game’s slightly eccentric control system, which even upon mastering can serve to frustrate. In fact, there is a level of invention in this game which makes the most of the limitations a platformer offers, especially control-wise, but more on this later. When you get into the second world, things really start to happen and it’s all helped along by a plot that strangely for a genre outside RPG’s is quite epic. To describe what the whole game is about would ruin it, because much of it is about working things out for yourself. Witness the truly bizzare Clanpots where mixing items gives you new weapons (Two shurikens for a boomerang anybody?) and extremely versatile Clanballs to name but two. |
| The graphics themselves are also highly stylised, with some superb character design in the anime style and some great speech ("Shake,shake"). The dialogue is hilarious in a direct-Japanese translation sort of way; when was the last time you saw end of level bosses bickering over whose fan-club the lead character should join? The boss levels themselves are highly impressive with an effective scaling screen approach as you get closer and further away from them. It’s hard to describe, but amazing to watch (imagine the screen growing from widescreen to full screen in realtime and you have an idea). Add some great parody transforming mecha and some truly unique methods of beating them and you have bosses like no other. |
 A boss (like no other, apparently) |
| So the controls, then? Well, unlike other N64 games, you can’t use the analogue stick at all, only the D-Pad. After you’ve got used to this you have Marina’s many functions to make use of. Firstly, she can grab a variety of things - missiles, bombs, fists, people and shake them. Shaking can cause damage, speed up detonation times, release gems, make things grow, mix things or even open new warps up. Now you see how versatile the game is. Marina also has a rocket booster that can be activated horizontally or diagonally with the pad or C-‘buttons to help her across gaps or keep her from falling into pits of lava. Add to this rolling, throwing and dashing and two levels with a new character who has variety of offensive punches and a triple jump and you’ll see how far things have progressed since Donkey Kong. |
 Maria liked to get close to
her enemies before the kill |
| For example, (deep breath) after beating a cat at dodgeball (after the Clancer equivalent of the Olympics with events like 100m, Hurdle and Math(!)), Marina rides on its back being chased by the boss, riding the missiles thrown at her, catching others and throwing them back. After this it’s a one-on-one confontation followed by stealing his gun and giving him a good taste of his own medicine, and all in one level. |
| Cut sequences are brilliantly done in the anime-style, and the running gag of the professor getting kidnapped in sillier ways each time is a great touch, featuring the classic decoy-Marina and the phony phone-call distraction. |
 Maria's visit to the Eiffel
Tower was a big disappointement |
| So it’s quite good then? Definitely, but as is nearly always the case in platformers, hardcore gamers will find the challenge of the main game quite short-lived. Treasure have made a good attempt by including a yellow gem you have to find in each level, the method of finding which is either completely obvious or so completely inscrutable that you’ll wonder if it’s all worth it. Fortunately it is worth it as the number of yellow gems directly relates to the length of the ending; collect enough and you may be lucky to see the (self-proclaimed) ‘surprise ending.’ |
| Once you’ve done that, you’ve got to achieve an ‘A’ grade time for each level. I’ve even managed to get an ‘S’(perfect grade) for one level, which I’ve never heard mentioned before. In fact the whole process is akin to that of Blast Corps or Goldeneye, and repetition never hurt those games. Unfortunately, like Blast Corps there’s not that much to do afterwards (perhaps even the Olympics level could have been multiplayer) and it suffers slightly as a result. |
| It’s a credit to Treasure that after gems like Dynamite Headdy and Guardian Heroes, they still come up with credible and original games like this. Overall though, a solid and uniquely structured platformer that shouldn’t be overlooked by the ‘2D is dead’ cynics. |
 Maria's response to a 2D philistine |
| Graphics - 8
Blocky, old-fashioned, but entirely suitable. Sound - 7 Hilarious albeit crackly speech, but some good music and sound effects. Playability - 9 You’ll never believe how versatile a D-Pad can be. Originality - 9 It’s a platformer, but unlike any other. Lastability - 7 Short game, but it depends on whether repetition is your bag. Overall - 8 A hyper-inventive platformer that could have been that little bit bigger. 2D is far from dead, roll on Yoshi’s Story. |