Frogger
Sega Genesis
When you think of classic arcade games most people think of things like Galaga, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. To me, Frogger has always been a “second tier” arcade classic. A classic, sure, but not one that immediately comes to mind when you think of the genre.
I’ve played Frogger a small handful of times in my life. Most of these occurrences came from my youth when I was out at a family restaurant or a bowling alley or something like that. I’d pop in some quarters, play a few rounds, only last a couple of minutes (if that) before dying, and then move on to the next game. I liked the concept of Frogger, I just was never very good at it.
And that’s been the extent of my experience with the game. I haven’t played any home versions of the game. I haven’t played any of its sequels. I’ve never even really thought much about Frogger at all, to be honest with you.
Until now!
Over the lifespan of this blog I have mentioned many times the box of Sega Genesis games that my cousin Ryan loaned me. I am getting down near the end of that box. I was looking through it, trying to find a quick game to play and review. Toy Story? Nah. Too long and too hard. Lion King? Same. Primal Rage? I almost picked that one actually. But I wanted something shorter. Something I could play for an hour or so before I called it quits and started putting a review together. Frogger seemed like a perfect candidate.
A little background on the game first. This is an arcade-perfect port of the 1981 version of Frogger. It came out for the Sega Genesis in 1998. This is believed to be the very last Genesis title ever released for the system. Why they would release a seventeen year old arcade port that no one really cared about anymore as one of the last titles ever for a dying system is beyond me. I am sure that to them, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Gameplay is extremely basic. You control a frog and you have to guide him through a traffic filled road, over obstacles in the water, and to its comfy little frog hole destination. You move in only four directions (left, right, up, and down). The majority of the time you spend playing is spent moving back and forth dodging objects that will kill you instantly. The road is filled with cars but it is pretty simple to traverse, as the traffic patterns can be easily predicted. The tough part is jumping over logs and over turtles when you get to the water. Things are constantly moving in the water and at different speeds. This makes it hard to line up your jumps properly. Fall in the water, you die. Touch the edge of the screen while on a log, you die. Jump on a turtle just as it is submerging? You die. Guide five frogs across the water and into their frog holes, and you pass the stage. Then you move on to the next stage, which is slightly more difficult. Play long enough and pass enough stages and things get REALLY tough.
I came into this home version of the game with low expectations. I knew from my past experiences with Frogger that I liked the game, but I was expecting more of a Paperboy type scenario to unfold. In case you skipped over my Paperboy review, that is a game that I always liked as a kid and I had fond memories of. Then I played the arcade-perfect Genesis version as an adult and I was like “holy hell this game sucks!!” Frustrating, hard to control, extremely unfair in the way things just popped up out of nowhere and would kill you without you being able to defend yourself. I truly expected to feel the same way with Frogger.
That didn’t happen. If anything, the opposite happened. With Paperboy, I went from loving it as a kid to hating it now. With Frogger, I went from indifference as a kid to really, really loving it as an adult. The game is flat out addicting. On my first attempt, I probably passed a level or two before dying and having to start over. But it was MY fault I died. Unlike Paperboy, I couldn’t blame the controls. Nothing came out of nowhere and blindsided me unfairly. I was the only person to blame for my failure. So I restarted and tried it again. Did better, but still lost because of my dumb mistakes. And then I played again. And again. And again. Each time trying to get better and learn from the mistakes of my previous attempt.
Before I knew it, that hour I had allotted myself to play the game had passed. Was I going to pack it up and write a review? No! I wasn’t done with the game yet. I played it while I watched TV shows in the background. I played it while I listened to music. I played it before going to bed. Several days later at the time of this review, I still am not done playing it. The game is more addicting than Candy Crush. I keep telling myself – just one more try! And then that turns into ten more. I have gotten pretty good at the game, too. Frogger doesn’t really keep track of the number of level you are on, but I think I made it to somewhere in the thirty range. My highest score was 100,000 something. I don't know the exact score because your points reset to 0 when you hit 100,000 points, which is kind of lame. My main goal was to hit 100,000 points though, and I did it. When I hit that, I was able to safely consider the game beaten.
The key to playing well is pattern recognition. There is almost no excuse for getting hit by a vehicle. As I said, they follow a very strict and reliable pattern. Getting hit still happens from time to time though, and it kills me a little bit on the inside each time it does. Getting across the water is more difficult. There is a lot more that could go wrong. Again, everything follows a pattern. So in theory if you play the same level over and over again you should be able to do it easily. But things pop up that throw a wrench into that pattern. Snakes will appear on the sidewalk and on logs in the water, forcing you into actions that put you at risk. These red bird things skim over the water from time to time. They can’t come up onto the logs, but if you are standing too close to the edge they will kill you. I’ve gotten good at avoiding them now, but man they used to kill me all the time and it would be super irritating. Logs float on the water at different speeds, so if you time things poorly and get stuck on a log while waiting to jump to the next one and it moves off the edge of the screen, it kills you. Also, when things are moving quickly and you are running out of time, you make dumb decisions that can result in instant death. Like, trying to jump over a group of frogs that is about to submerge. Nope, not fast enough. You dead! Trying to jump quickly to the next log just as they are passing each other. Nope. Dead. One thing that seems super easy happens to me ALL the time. It is when you get to the last row of logs and have to jump into your frog hidey hole. I have mistimed my jump and smashed into the sides of those holes more times than I can count. Nothing is more annoying than making it all the way across and then dying just as you are reaching your destination.
The thing that makes this game so addicting is that it really puts you on the spot as a gamer. I always feel so disappointed in myself when I die. Then I start a new game, looking to rectify my previous mistake, only to die in a different manner. Then I start a new game. This time, I am so impatient to get to the tougher levels that I try to rush and wind up dying on the easier levels. Then I start a new game. I’ll do well, but I think to myself that THIS time I will do even better. Then I start a new game….
That’s the true genius of a game like Frogger. It is so simple that you think it should be a walk in the park. Then you start playing and you find out that it is very brutal and unforgiving. Brutal and unforgiving but fair. This just makes you want to keep playing. If this was like Paperboy and I was getting killed over and over again over something that I couldn’t control, I would have stopped playing already. But this game is different.
If I had to knock one thing about this home version of the game, it is that the difficulty level kind of plateaus after a while. On my most recent playthrough I was on cruise control. It was the best game I had ever played. My points reset back to 0 because I had made it so far. I continued to plug on and drive that score up. I was on an absolute tear. Eventually, however, I kind of gave up. The levels weren't getting any harder. The points were back to 0 and I couldn't even really aim for a high score. And even if I did keep going for a high score, it is not like I had anyone around to share it with. The monotony started to set in. I stopped trying as hard as I had been, and kind of let myself lose my last few lives. After days and days of being smitten by this game and trying to master it, I finally did. I found that it wasn't nearly as fun to play anymore when I wasn't being challenged. So I think I am going to have to put this game down for a while.
That being said, I still had an absolute blast with the game. If you would have told me that I would have loved this so much and sunk so much time into the game before I started playing it, I would have told you that you were nuts. But it really is a true retro gem. The graphics, the music – these all ooze classic 80’s charm. It is fun, it is addicting, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most influential arcade classics out there. The fact that a game can be reviewed by some schmuck like me over 37 years after it was released and STILL garner a near perfect score should say a lot about its quality. What I thought would end up being just some game I would play for an hour to pass the time ended up turning into one of the best things I have played in months.
Overall:
A
If you liked my review, of Frogger please check out the following reviews:
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