Topic: SNES platform game character ratings

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Fixed.  And yes, too bad the music in Bubsy 2 is so god awful.  Sounds like a cartoon character farting various musical instruments.

[TerraEsperZ]

I remember renting the first Bubsy game (along with a SNES since I never owned one) after several work-in-progress reports in Nintendo Power magazine singing the game's future praises. Unfortunately, the game was really bad with horrible controls and boring stages that are so big the moment you jump high and start gliding you have no idea where you're going to land. At least that's what I remember of it, having only made it to the first amusement park stage at the time, and I never even felt like giving it a second chance on an emulator, much less tried the second game. Bad Sonic clone is a good descriptor.

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Animal Forms (Claymates)
Another group rating here this time revolving around a main character that turns into his animal buddies instead of tagging along with them.  First off Clayton, the main character, can't do very much.  He's a clay ball and he's got all the powers you'd expect from one.  Yet somehow he beats almost all the animal forms in at least one area.  Jumping.  Clayton can.  It's his best trait in fact.  Being a cat Mukster's should be better.  Oozy, a speed demon mouse, can practically fly with running jumps, which is funny since Doh-Doh, a bird who can fly, can't jump for anything.  Globmeister, a gopher, and Goopy, a fish, are about average.  Maneuverability.  Clayton stinks and so does Goopy, although somehow Clayton, who is again a clay ball, is actually more maneuverable in water then Goopy, who is again a fish.  Everybody else is average except Doh-Doh who, when airborne, blows the rest away.  Offense.  Average to sub par across the board except for Globmeister who can be a damn destroyer, and Goopy who once again somehow manages to do poorly even when he excels.  Defense.  None of them have any.  Think of the animal buddy system in DKC, it's just like that.  Versatility.  Here's where they're all different.  While Clatyon really has none Muckster can climb, Oozy can jump about any gap, Globmeister digs, Doh-Doh can fly, and of course Goopy swims.  This has gone on way too long and I promise it won't happen again in the future.  No good exports save Globmeister and then it's hairline.  The end.

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Mr. Bloopy (Mr. Bloopy)
This is as much a puzzle game as it is a platformer and Bloopy's abilities show it.  I'll make this quick.  Mr. Bloopy can't jump, he can't maneuver, there's only 2 kinds of enemies he can actually kill, and he dies at the slightest tap.  His high versatile it only really helps with the puzzles.  Masochists only need apply for export.  See?  Quick.

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Kyle Reese (The Terminator)
Yet another standard action hero Kyle excels at all the things most of them do.  His offense is average for his game and he can shoot in more then one direction.  His defense is high and he can take a lot of damage before he dies.  His versatility is confined to moves that would only be useful for an action hero and upgrades are by item only.  Kyle's jumping is much greater then it needs to be making me wonder if the designers were planning something more and his maneuverability is only really average.  Sometimes I wonder if the action hero type character is destined to have less of a variety gradient overall compared to other types of platform characters based on what I've seen so far.  Anyway Kyle would export well into most games blah blah blah movie jokes.

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Stanley Ippkiss (The Mask)
Preforming much better then most movie to game characters Stanley really stands out.  In fact he beats most other characters period.  You can think of Stanley in Earthworm Jim terms: he's got a lot of good moves that get a lot better if he has enough ammo, or in this case MP.  Jumping is Stanley's top stat.  He can easily jump straight up off screen or forward several screens if he's going top speed.  His maneuverability is boosted by his quickness and again by his speed.  His defense, high for his game, would be huge in most games.  His versatility is another would be average but it gets boosted by other stats.  Stanley's offense, just like Jim's, is something to behold.  He has more then one full screen attack, more then one tackle attack, he can use combos, and unlike most characters he can attack while running without breaking stride.  Stanley has more then enough firepower to survive even a Metroid game.  He'd make a great export into any game you wanted to show who's boss.  I'd like a Mask with a god trapped in it.

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James Pond (Super James Pond)
James, who is some kind of fish, takes after mario.  In other words he jumps on heads and has limited upgradeability.  I should add a warning here: the sickening levels of cuteness in this game may cause convulsions.  James is a great jumper.  In fact he fell just short getting the Sky Master ratting.  In other games he certainly would but characters are rated by how they do in their games not by how they might do in games I can't test them in.  James has good maneuverability and decent offense and defense.  He'll stop where you want him to and enemies don't last long or do to much damage.  As for versatility James has a very unique trick.  He can stretch himself straight up continuously like a rubber band until he reaches the ceiling, at which point he grabs on to like a ninja.  This cool move changes the game since as long as there's something above James there's nowhere he can't go.  It's a bizarre move and I could talk on about it for a while but suffices to say this ladder fish can get some things done.  James is odd and cute but I think he would really do well in other games.  A definite export.

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B.O.B. (B.O.B.)
I hate this guy, but not for any good reason.  B.O.B. is pretty close to how you'd expect a lot of machine characters to be, slow and dangerous.  And compared to most characters he really is quite slow.  His average jumping and maneuverability are held down due to his robotic weight and it takes him too long to get moving fast.  His defense would be a lot better if he wasn't so vulnerable to combos.  But moving on to B.O.B.'s better traits he has a variety of great weaponry that can inflict a lot of damage and get around almost any enemy defense, the only draw back being ammo requirement.  B.O.B.'s versatility is even better since he can use all kinds of gadgets to fly himself around, stop time, create a personal forcefield, and do a bunch of other things.  But unfortunately these too require ammo.  If he was a little faster he'd be a lot better.  Sadly that combined with his lack on an invincibility period cripples him and I think in most games he'd just add unnecessary difficulty.  But hey, if you like a challenge.

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Pugsley Addams (Addams Family Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt)
Been a while since I've done one of these.  Not quite an action hero Pugsley is a little too easy to kill.  His jumping is fast and far but he skids and it hurts him a lot.  More then it would if he was in a different game.  As such he loses a maneuverability point.  His offense and defense are garbage.  He can only take three hits max, and he can only inflict one hit at a time via a head stomp.  His versatility should be a lot better but it fails and unlike his jumping problems he can't blame this one on his game.  He crawling and climbing don't work with his jumping, and the one cool wall kick jumping trick he has is harder to use the Samus's wall jumping.  Over all he fails, but most of those failings would be fixed if he had a little more offense and defense.

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Lester Knight Chaykin (Out of This World)
Poor Lester, you were never meant for platforming.  Lester is probably a good example of what would happen to a real person dumped into a video game: death.  Lester has no defense at all, one hit, any hit, will kill him.  Conversely the weapon he gets makes his offense spectacular.  One shot kills all around.  It's also the only real place he gets his versatility from even though the games environment makes it appear otherwise.  His maneuverability is nonexistent but at least his jumping is easy to control.  Even if it's really bad.  I get the feeling that the only other game he might have a chance in is Abe's Odyssey.

[TerraEsperZ]

Lester Knight Chaykin (Out of This World)
Poor Lester, you were never meant for platforming.  Lester is probably a good example of what would happen to a real person dumped into a video game: death.

I wonder if you've played the sequel, Heart of the Alien (disavowed by the designer of the original game, Éric Chahi) because that comment you just made turns out to be quite ironic...

All these posts about platforming heroes actually make me wish you'd do a quick review of each game instead. Then again, I really don't need to add any more game to the queue...

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No I hadn't heard of Heart of the Alien.  *watches video*  So you play as the alien instead of Lester?  Still looks pretty easy to die.  If I did full game reviews I'd take forever.  I have to stop myself with certain character reviews since some could go on and on with comparisons of character ability to game environment.  You'd be surprised just how much the game itself can diminish or boost a characters abilities.  With Out of This World for example almost all enemies are deadly as hell.  You could take otherwise tough characters like Firebrand or Simon Belmont and they would have a really hard time.  Then of course Lester would still die in the easiest of games.  Out of This World just happens to have put a marshmallow of a character into a crucible of a game.  Sometimes it's in reverse, or there's great balance, or something else entirely.  I could pick apart the details for pages.

[TerraEsperZ]

No I hadn't heard of Heart of the Alien.  *watches video*  So you play as the alien instead of Lester?  Still looks pretty easy to die.

I was trying to avoid spoilers, but let's say the sequel (which is a pretty shitty game with worse controls and traditional instead of vector graphics like the first one) spells out pretty graphically Lester's ultimate fate .

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Al Simmons (Spawn)
Lead foot.  Total lead foot.  Spawn has other problems too but his lack of maneuverability makes the game almost unplayable.  I could rant.  His jumping is OK but it probably wouldn't be in another game.  In fact his versatility is all about jumping making both much better.  He's got great wall climbing and gliding.  His defense is where he shines since he's more or less immortal.  He has a health battery that's almost impossible to exhaust.  His Offense SHOULD be fantastic too but there's an overall game problem that holds him back.  This game can't decided weather it wants to be a platform game or a beat em up.  It mixes both components badly and in doing so handicaps Spawn.  He's got tons of great attacks, more then Samus even, but they're hard to use since they're all button combinations.  He could have been a truly awesome character, instead he's just another muscle man who walks around with his chest puffed out and talks in an extra deep voice.

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Don't you think that makes games feel cheap?  "We don't want to make more games in this series so we'll just kill off the main character instead of ending it right."