Video Game Review #111: Bug!

Bug!

Sega Saturn

Bug! holds the distinct honor of being the first Sega Saturn game I ever had the chance to play. Back in the mid 90s, renting video game systems was the way to go. The Saturn and the PlayStation had just hit the market and several people I knew had decided to rent the systems to see which one they wanted to purchase. My stepbrother had rented a PlayStation system along with the games Warhawk and Battle Arena Toshinden. I tried these games and was blown away by the power of the PlayStation. Yet for some reason I still had my mind set on buying a Saturn. What can I say, I was blindly loyal to Sega at the time. But I couldn't quite afford a system yet. So instead I rented a Saturn along with the games Bug! and Virtua Fighter. I figured this would tide me over for a few months until I had enough allowance money saved up to get a Saturn of my own.

That weekend I played the heck out of Bug! Virtua Fighter is a decent game of course, but fighting games were never my thing. Plus I had played it in the arcade before and knew what to expect from it. Bug! was more up my alley. It had all the characteristics of a 2D platform game (my favorite genre) but had found a way to bring things to the third dimension. I immediately became immersed in the game. I had never played anything like it before. It was challenging, it was creative, it was humorous, and it was gorgeous (for its time). I spent countless hours on Bug! but I never managed to beat the game. It was okay though. Like I said, I had already made up my mind that I was going to buy a Saturn over a PlayStation. I figured I could always come back to Bug! once I had a system of my own.

Eventually I did end up buying a Saturn but I never was able to find the game Bug! I rented its sequel, Bug Too, and beat that game. But for some reason the original title kept eluding me. It wasn't in the stores, it wasn't available to rent. I couldn't find it anywhere.

I must have purchased a Saturn back in '95 or '96. I would say a solid ten to fifteen years passed before I finally got my hands on a copy of Bug! I found it at some used video game resale store for dirt cheap. As soon as I saw it, it was a no-brainer that I was going to pick it up. I tried giving it a go, but I found the game to be too long and difficult for me. And by this time my Saturn's battery that allowed it to save games had died. If I wanted to beat the game I was going to have to dedicate my entire day to it because once I turned off my system all of my save files would go away.

Over the years I would randomly play Bug! in an attempt to beat it and close this particular chapter of my life. Every time, the same thing would happen. I would forget how long, time consuming, and challenging this game was. I would give it my 100% best but would always come up way short. It began to frustrate me to be quite frank with you.

When I first started reviewing games I knew that eventually I would have to come back and beat Bug! Well, in the last week of September 2017 that moment finally arrived. Or at least I thought it did. Can you imagine that the same thing happened to me that had happened the last several times I had played the game? I couldn't do it. I had set aside the whole day to play Bug! but still came up short. It was unreal. I let the game sit a week and came back with a vengeance. I couldn't let years pass where I would forget the stage layouts, the proper way to make difficult jumps, and all the locations of the secrets I had unearthed. I would remember everything I had learned from my first attempt and would incorporate it on my second. It was beat Bug! or bust time.

And guess what? I finally beat Bug! It was a long and stressful journey, but I prevailed. Considering that I first had played this game back in 1995 or 1996, it was an accomplishment over twenty years in the making.

Now that you know my story with the game, let me tell you a little bit about the title itself. This game is a platformer where you control a character named Bug! He is a big time movie start in the insect world. When his female companion is kidnapped, he must make a dangerous journey through several movie sets to track down the kidnapper and win back his lady once and for all. Simple premise, right?

The game plays like a normal 2D side-scroller with a twist. You run, you could jump, you could pick up items that would allow you to spit at or electrify your enemies. However the twist is what set the game apart. For one of the first times in a game I had ever played 3D aspects were introduced to the fray. Say for example you are walking left. You can see that the path you are on goes up, down, and to the left. Stand at the intersection and hold down to go down, up for up, or keep holding left to just keep on walking. Your movement is restricted to these paths, however. This isn't really a "true" 3D environment like you can find in games like Super Mario 64. But hey for its time it was revolutionary.

This simple game play mechanic really makes Bug! work. Each stage is enormous. There are so many branching paths to take, you can almost have a completely different experience each time you play the game. Each stage is like a giant maze you must work your way through. There are secrets, collectibles, and bonus stages to be found all over the place. Each movie themed act has four stages - three of them are standard "make it to the end of the stage" type stages, but the fourth one is always a boss fight. I believe there are six or seven giants acts in the game, each with four stages. Each stage can take up to a half hour to clear, especially if you are taking the time to explore everything. All three stages combined can easily take you an hour to two hours to complete. And then you have to beat the boss to move on.

With all these stages taking so long to complete, the game can feel REALLY long as you are playing it. Plus the game is challenging too. Imagine my reaction when I found out that when I died and had to use a continue I would start at the beginning of each act all over again, regardless of which stage I was on. Yeah. Even if you are really good at this game it can take hours to beat. If you aren't good, it could take you forever. I consider myself a relatively skilled gamer and even I had problems with this game.

What makes it so challenging? The jumps! The main character is for the most part easy to control, but things go sour once you get in the air. Bug! becomes much, much harder to control up there. Mis-jump and fall off the stage? You die. Fall in the water? You die. The game's collision control and depth perception, especially when moving up and down on the game's path is really terrible. And even when you are moving left to right a lot of the game's jumps can be agonizingly tough. Falling was my #1 cause of death in this game. It is "throw your controller through the TV" maddening at times. I had such a tough time with this game. Even the day I finally beat it I struggled massively. This is not a game for casuals.

All in all, I am not sure what I think about the game. The retro/nostalgic part of me wants to give it high marks for it being the first Saturn game I played and also for it being such a revolutionary title in the 3D platform genre. But another part of me had no fun with the game at all and found it to be a huge, frustrating chore. I do like a lot of things about the game. The graphics are charming, as are the music and sound effects. I like the noises, I like each stage's musical score. I even like your character's off the wall comments he makes whenever you kill or get hit by an enemy. My favorite, though, is when you collect a can of Bug Juice (health) and some unseen character shouts out "Buuugg Juiiiice!!!" at the top of his lungs. Plus you have to admire all the work that went into designing such massive, secret filled stages.

The game itself though is just too frustrating. And it is not charming/frustrating like Mega Man or Ninja Gaiden. It feels really unfair most of the time. Especially when you take into account the length of all the stages and how much backtracking you have to do when you use a continue. I would be lying if I said I was having fun by the time the last stage rolled around. I was OVER IT.

I think a middling grade works for a middling game. I appreciate what it did and I enjoy my fond memories of renting this game back in my teenage years. But I just find it too hard to enjoy playing in the present day. If a game isn't fun to play, then what's the point? Now that I have finally conquered my demons and beaten this game, I doubt I will ever come back to it again.

Overall:

C-