Video Game Review #446: Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool

Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool

Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo

Nostalgia Factor:

It has been over eight years now that I've been writing this blog, and I still manage to pump out "firsts" on a somewhat regular basis. Well, here is another one. My first ever joint review between two different versions of a video game. I've done something similar in the past, like with my Batman Returns and Judge Dredd reviews, but those involved comparing the two games side by side and assigning each of them their own review score. I'm not going to do that here. These games are so similar, I'm going to treat them as just one single review with one shared final score.

As far as nostalgia goes, I have distant childhood memories of renting the Sega Genesis version of this game when it first came out. I remember almost nothing about the game, other than that I had a good time with it. And that's it. I remember nothing else except for that vaguely positive impression the game left on me.

When I first started learning how to emulate old video games, this is a title that began to linger in the back of my mind. I knew just from glancing over the reviews that this game was nothing special, but that didn't matter to me. I liked it as a kid and I wanted to check it out as an adult to see how it held up.

What would be right, the reviews that were critical of this game, or my memories? Only one way to find out.

Story:

This is the main area where the two versions of the game differ. The Genesis version doesn't give you any story tidbits whatsoever. You're just thrown right into the game and off you go.

The Super Nintendo version has title screens before the start of each level that tell you what is going on in the game.

So what is going on in the game? Not a whole lot, really. Chester Cheetah is locked inside of a zoo, and his only way out is to find all the missing pieces of his motorcycle and assemble them so he can drive away. Upon close scrutiny, this game's story doesn't really hold up. He's trapped in a zoo, but he has free reign of the place to wander wherever he wants? There's a flying level towards the end of the game. Why can't he just fly out? What good would assembling a bike do?

It all makes much more sense if you just disregard the story and focus on the gameplay, which is what I did. Clearly, the storyline is not important and only provides the most basic of reasons for Chester doing the things he does in this game.

Gameplay:

I'm just going to lead things off here by saying that there is nothing, and I mean nothing special about this title's gameplay. There are only five levels. The point of each level is to find the missing bike piece, at which point you can then proceed to the level exit. 

I played through this game twice. My first playthrough was on the Genesis, and my second was on the Super Nintendo. The first time I played through this game it took me about an hour or so to beat, and that was with me fully exploring each level and collecting as much stuff as I could. But all that "stuff" you collect is just crap. So you can earn some extra lives. Woo-hoo. Big deal. If you cut down on the exploring and just focus on the task at hand, this game can easily be beaten in about 20 or 30 minutes - which is exactly what happened my second time through this game.

Okay, so the game is short. Aside from that, is it fun to play? Not really. You can't talk about this game without mentioning the speed at which your character moves. For a cheetah, he sure is slow AF. And I mean reaaaaaaaal slow. His character model is very big too. I mean, he controls fine enough, but moving this big, slow, lumbering cheetah around the environment can be a cumbersome thing. He does have the ability to dash, but you can only dash after finding the hidden shoes in each stage. He is already wearing shoes. Why does he need to collect them to be able to dash?

Not that the dash is very helpful anyway. Every time I'd use it, an enemy would come up on the edge of the screen and I would not be able to react fast enough to avoid it. This resulted in some cheap deaths.

Other useless items include a pair of sunglasses that allows you to see hidden power ups and a guitar that gives you invincibility. But you can't control your character while he is jamming on the guitar, he just dances around on the screen. So that invincibility is pretty useless. In fact, picking up the guitar is often a detriment. There's a stage where you're being carried over the water, and if you grab the guitar, Chester dances himself off the ledge and into the water, where you take damage. Oy.

Enemies can be defeated by simply jumping on their heads. Collision detection is pretty poor in this game. Sometimes I'd take damage for seemingly no reason whatsoever when doing this. At least in the SNES version, most enemies stay dead. In the Genesis version, they are simply knocked unconscious and then they get up a few seconds later and start coming after you again.

There are some additional breaks in the platforming monotony, but nothing too groundbreaking. You can ride a mine cart, ride a skateboard down the street, and ride on the back of a flying insect. Unfortunately these segments are just as poorly designed as the platforming stages.

As much as I am bagging on this game, it is not unplayable or anything. I wouldn't say it is a complete mess. It's just not good. 

Graphics:

You'd probably think by looking at these screenshots that this is not a bad looking game, and it isn't. It's got bright colors, some interesting character designs, some fun environments. I'm struggling to come up with a comparison from a similar looking game, but maybe Ren and Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention? That Speedy Gonzales game also comes to mind, but I think that this game probably isn't quite as good looking as that one.

That said, this game's graphics are probably the best thing about it. My only real complaint are that some of the animations are questionable. And although I described the character design as "interesting", some of it is just flat out weird. Were the game developers tripping out when they made this?

Sound:

It's funny reading other people's reviews for this game, because they all hated its music and sound effects, but I really like it. I get it, this isn't a good game. But no need to dogpile on it with unfair criticism. The soundtrack is totally fine. It's fun, upbeat, and has that classic 16-bit tinge to it. It is nothing spectacular and it is nothing I'm going to remember in two weeks, but it's perfectly fine!

Sound effects are good too. The one that stands out in my mind is from the SNES version, when you take damage. Chester kind of swings his head back and forth and makes this teeth chattering "aye aye aye" noise. It's charming.  

Overall:

Okay, so we've already established that this is not a good game. I hesitate to call it outright bad, however. You can be not good without being actively bad at the same time, and that is where this game seems to fall. It's playable. It does some good things. I don't think I'll ever play it again, but it is not going to go down in my pantheon of all time terrible games. So, spoiler alert, it is going to avoid the dreaded D- or F range for me.

That being said, it still isn't a good game and nothing is going to save it from that. If you decide to skip over this title, you really aren't missing anything at all. I can't in good faith recommend this game to anyone. It is as forgettable a video game as you can possibly get.

THE GRADE:

D

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