Ocean makes a fantastic game mediocre.
Written: Feb 14 '04 (Updated Feb 14 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The basic elements that made Mr. Do! great are there.
Cons: The advanced techniques that made Mr. Do! a timeless classic, like flawless control, are missing.
The Bottom Line: I love the arcade and SNES versions, but this one's merely average. Some essential elements are completely missing from the game. Collectors need it, everyone else avoid.
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| rader6795's Full Review: Mr. Do! for Game Boy Color |
Prologue
Mr. Do!, the arcade game, is one of my favorite games of all time. Whenever I do finally get the money to build my own private arcade, the first cabinet I'm getting is Mr. Do! Maybe not, really, as there was a cocktail table version of the game available.
So, when I did a search on Mr. Do! here on Epinions, I saw it was on Gameboy in addition to Super Nintendo. Luckily, I found the Super Nintendo version in a discount bin long ago at the end of the system's life at Walmart. Unluckily, this was the first I've ever heard of the game on Gameboy Color.
There's two reasons for it. First off, it was released before the Gameboy Color and, thus, was never portable in color. Also, it was a limited run.
So, it took some time and the game costs more now than the day it was released due to availability, but I finally picked up a copy.
You think I'm funny... funny how?
Mr. Do! is a clown. You heard me right. Not only is he a clown, but he's a clown with an undying hunger for cherries. With his magical powerball, he fights monsters who, for some reason, just don't like clowns. Mimes I could understand hating, but clowns? The only way these monsters could be meaner is they drank puppy blood.
The gameplay could be best described as a mix of Ladybug (Universal's own Pac-Man knock-off, which played better than Pac-Man) and Dig-Dug. You tunnel through the area, collecting cherries, avoiding enemies and trying to get to their treasure they're guarding. Should you collect the treasure, all enemies on the field are frozen and three apple eating monsters will spawn, accompanied by a letter monster. Kill all the apple eaters and the frozen monsters will be able to move again. Kill the letter monster and the apple eaters will disappear (leaving apples in their place), the frozen monsters will be able to move and you'll be given that letter monster's letter. Spell "EXTRA" and you win an extra life and move to the next stage.
Your powerball ricochets off the maze at a 45 degree angle. This is both good and bad, as you can attack monsters that are nowhere near you, but it also means you can miss a monster at a very inoppurtune time. Nail a monster with the powerball and the powerball explodes taking the monster with it for an easy 500 points. Then, after a short time, the powerball pieces itself back together in Mr. Do!'s hands.
Scattered throughout the field are groups of eight cherries and numerous apples. Apples can crush your enemies a la Dig Dug. However, unlike Dig Dug, apples only break if they drop more than one full square or if they land on an enemy. Also, you can push apples, which is great for taking out enemies as they follow you. Any enemy who suffers death by apple are worth a thousand points. Each additional enemy doubles that point value. If you push an apple into an enemy and crush it against a wall, then you get only 500 points but the apple stays ready to be pushed. Each time you collect a cherry, a musical note from the Major Scale sounds. Go from "do" to "do" and you get 500 bonus points.
Holy revelations, Batman! I've never seen it anywhere, but that means that I've been pronouncing it wrong the whole time. It's not "doo" it's "dough." Oh well, a later game in the series was Do! Run Run, so I guess everybody else called it that, too, and Universal just gave in.
Regardless, make no mistake about it, the whole point of this game is to get a load of points, just like in the arcade game.
Levels are simple and the path already cleared is based off of the stage number. There are ten stages total, which grow more and more difficult. Clear all ten stages and they loop back to the beginning while increasing in difficulty. Thus, stage ten has only a zero carved into it, so stage twenty wouldn't have a different path.
Enemies chase you as you run around and dig your way through the playfield. Sometimes, most often when they can't use the cleared paths to get to you, enemies will transform briefly into diggers. Diggers can do anything Do can do except throw a powerball... um... do. In addition, they've been given a huge speed boost in this version making them more dangerous than ever before.
Stages are cleared three different ways. You can collect all the cherries in the stage, kill all the monsters in the stage or spell EXTRA. In the arcades, there'd be a rare diamond that would appear only when an apple was broken. It would give you an extra game and move you to the next stage, but I've yet to see it in this version. Still three different ways to get through a stage is flexibility that most games never have and what really makes Mr. Do! great.
However, what isn't in the game really takes away from it.
First up, the music in the game is minimal at best. Even with the mighty Gameboy Advance SP speaker setting at its highest, I couldn't hear anything but the Major Scale. Where's the resonating sound of the powerball as it ricochets throughout the maze? Where's the simple circus music? You can choose different music from the options but I still haven't heard it.
The graphics for this game have seen a complete overhaul. Animations have been increased and Do himself has tons more detail. However, the cherries contain far more detail than all the monsters in the game. Also, Do looks sillier now than ever. He went from simple clown to court jester, and it's never more obvious than when you get an extra life. He bounds like a little girl skipping through a candy cloud shortly before lobbing his powerball at a poorly drawn monster who surrenders. Maybe it's better than the two frames I'm used to seeing, but it's still ugly. However, the animation that happens during each stage performance summary (every three rounds and after the "zero" stage) is far better than the two frame apple-pushing of the original.
Furthermore, the original game allowed for somewhere in the area of 4 moves per grid square. That way, if you accidentally tapped left, you could quickly change direction. Also, you used to be able to push an apple a little bit towards an edge before you let it go and keep enemies from passing until they decided to morph into diggers. This, though, forces you to push the apples. This is worsened by the fact that apples don't just drop, now, they plummet so fast you can't see them.
This movement might not seem like much, but games like this are all about control. When that control is lacking, then you notice it far more than if it were, say, a roleplaying game.
The Mr. Do! that I know and love is feared for its truly merciless gameplay. This port never puts the pressure on you. Enemies aren't aggressive, as I pegged most of them with the powerball from the start. This flaw reveals yet another flaw, also, in the changes to the game. The powerball originally would take time to respawn and, if overused, would take far longer than normal to respawn. This powerball, however, comes back at the same rate every time. This, again, makes the game far less hectic and more of a maze crawler than before.
In the original, whenever you were clearing the land, you were slowed down to about two-thirds your speed through a cleared path. This made it more important when fleeing enemies to run down places you've been before. Now, though, you can go anywhere to get away and still keep your speed. Also, the treasure guarded by the enemy spawns can be grabbed at any time, now, instead of once all enemies are in the playing field. This might seem slight, but this means you can freeze enemies more easily should you find yourself in trouble and collect extra lives like it's nothing.
Also, Gameboy limitations at the time ended up hurting the game, too. The most glaring notable is the fact that you just can't see enough of the screen most of the time. I'd estimate that you can only see about two-fifths of the screen at one time. Scrolling is done well, but when your powerball is bouncing around the stage, you need to know where to string the enemies along. Also, a load the game's strategy is apple location and how to get enemies behind it. This is all gone.
Epilogue
It might seem like I'm nitpicking but I'm a purist when it comes to the classics. If it's a new game in the series you can tamper all you want with the concepts. I don't care. Give him a hammer, throw him in a castle, take him 3D, I don't care. Hell, toss him on a rollercoaster if you want to, just leave him alone when he's doing his thing. No pun intended.
However, if it's a remake and you're not giving the game a complete overhaul, like in Sword of Mana or Final Fantasy Origins, then just leave it alone. Color and resolution problems aside, there's just too many changes that hurt the experience that I can't suggest this game, especially when there's a far superior version out there.
I really don't know what the developers at Ocean were thinking when they got this license from Universal. Perhaps they thought they were actually improving on the original, but I can't see how. As a member of the old-school, I think of this port the same way I think of Final Fantasy VII when compared to Final Fantasy VI. Sure, it's prettier, but it's just not as good.
Here's hoping Mr. Do! rides again so I can forget about this mediocre update.
Recommended:
No
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rader6795
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Member: Terry Rader
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