Mischief Makers
Nintendo 64
Nostalgia Factor:
Mischief Makers came out in 1997, when I was just a sophomore in high school. This was a magical time to be alive if you were a gamer. I had a Saturn, a PlayStation, and a Nintendo 64, and every single weekend I would rent a new game for one of these systems.
Unfortunately, my gaming obsession started to affect my grades. I didn't do homework, didn't complete any assigned projects, didn't study for tests. All I did was game game game. Towards the end of my sophomore year, I remember renting Mischief Makers with the intent of devoting an entire weekend to it. I was able to beat the game fairly quickly. I remember I had just started up a second playthrough of the game when my mom came in the room, saying she'd just gotten a call from my health class teacher in high school. There was a big paper due that I had not submitted. If I didn't submit my paper, I was going to fail the class. As long as I submitted something, I was probably going to pass. My mom made me turn off the game and get to work on that project immediately. I never played Mischief Makers again.
At the time, I was really angry with my teacher for calling my house on the weekend. What a bitch. I thought it was so invasive. What happens in school should stay in school, right? In retrospect, I am glad she did. If I hadn't submitted that paper, I probably would have flunked out of high school. I graduated with exactly the number of credits needed to graduate. That half credit from health class would have kept me in school another year, which is a terrifying thought.
Every time I think of Mischief Makers, I remember how my time with the game was cut short because of that phone call. I remember that more than the game itself. I decided to take a walk down memory lane and revisit this game, nearly 26 years after the fact. I was 15 years old the last time I played this. How would I like it at the ripe old age of 41? Let's find out.
Story:
This game's story is... interesting to say the least. It's funny, I just reviewed a different game from Treasure last week (Guardian Heroes) and that game's story is just as insane as this one. I remember that Gunstar Heroes also has a wacky story as well. Is this a trademark of Treasure games?
Anyway, you play as a robot named Marina. Marina has to rescue Professor Theo from the "Clancer" aliens who keep kidnapping him over and over again to bring to their Emperor. The story is very comical and lighthearted, filled with an eclectic cast of characters. It is nothing too deep or serious. In fact, you probably won't remember a single thing about the storyline a few weeks after you finish playing this game. The storyline is just a vessel to keep things moving along. They try to make it entertaining, though, which is appreciated, although I feel that some story sequences drag on for far too long, giving me mild Undertale vibes. We get it. You're trying to be cute and funny. But can we just play the game, please?
Gameplay:
This is not your typical 2D platformer. Most games of the genre focus on things like shooting, combat, and precision jumping. Most games also give you a set number of lives and continues that you have to use to beat the game. Not Mischief Makers.
This is a slower paced platformer makes you use your head. It's almost like a puzzle platformer. You can't attack your enemies. Jumping on them does not do anything. The main focus of the game is on grabbing things. Grab your enemy and throw it, or grab something and throw it at the enemy. You also jump and grab these floating face things as you play. You can use them as simple grapple points when you are trying to climb. You can also shake them to see if they open up any paths through the level. Sometimes these faces zip around the stage on tracks, and you have to grab onto them so they can take you where you need to go.
There is an overhead map in between stages that marks your progress. Pass a stage, move forward a space on the map. Most stages are fairly short. In fact, some are downright laughably short and can be beaten in less than a minute. Others are longer and require more thought and time when solving their puzzles.
There are also boss stages scatted throughout the game. Boss encounters quickly became something I looked forward to. They require a lot of strategy. You have to recognize the enemy patterns while finding what it is in the environment that you need to use to inflict damage on them. For example, for one boss you may need to pick up the small enemies and throw them at him to damage him. For another boss, you might grab onto the boss's weapon, pull it away from him, and use it against him. The game's standard stages are not very challenging, so I always looked forward to going into battle against these bosses and discovering their weaknesses.
There is some nice variety in the stages. One stage I will remember fondly is the stage where it is like the Olympic games, and you have to play through a series of different competitions. Although combat is limited, the puzzles themselves always seem fresh. The boss encounters do a nice job mixing things up as well.
While I wouldn't say Mischief Makers is a great game, or anything close to a great game for that matter, I can't deny that I still had a solid time playing it. It did just enough to keep me invested until the very end.
Graphics:
Most people playing this game in modern times will fall into two camps. They'll either be able to appreciate that this game looked good for its time, or they'll just say it looks like outdated crap. I fall into the first category. No, this isn't a beautiful looking game. In fact, I'd say some older titles that were released on 16-bit consoles (like Rocket Knight Adventures, Speedy Gonzales: Las Gatos Banditos, etc) look better. The character design is flat out weird looking, and the sprite animation is somewhat clunky and pixelated.
What the game gets right is its mix of 2D character and 3D environments. It doesn't always work, and you can very much tell that this type of art style was a work in progress for its time. But it does a lot of cool cinematic things that you didn't see back then. Some zooming in and out, some cool special effects. The makers of the game definitely had a very specific, lighthearted tone in mind when developing this title. And the artwork and the graphics are a perfect match for that tone.
Sound:
There is not much that is memorable about the game's music. I just finished playing it last night and I already could not hum a single tune from the game for you. I don't remember it being bad, though. It seems to fit the quirky and cheerful mood of the game.
What I will remember are the funny voice acted lines. "Shake, shake" and "Help me, Marinaaaa!!" are some of the highlights of the game for me. Very fun.
Overall:
This is a fairly average game. It doesn't really do anything poorly, but it doesn't do anything that is too remarkable, either. It's a decent puzzle solving platformer with some good boss battles. I suppose I could use this space to gripe about the game's ending. As you play, you collect white crystals, which are hidden in each stage. When the ending starts playing, it shows how many crystals you collected in the top left corner of the screen. The number of crystals starts going down, like a timer counting down. Once it hits zero, the ending cuts out and it goes back to the title screen. So unless you have collected every white crystal in the game (I believe there are 52), you can't see the true ending. I collected, like, 15 of them. I looked up the full ending on YouTube, because I sure as shit wasn't about to go back and get them all. I hate when games arbitrarily make you go back and find collectibles before you can see the ending. Jet Force Gemini, Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins: I'm looking at you! Add Mischief Makers to that list as well.
Gripes aside, I didn't have a terrible time playing this. But if you wanted to skip over this game, you would not really be missing much. I'd classify my time with Mischief Makers as "slightly above average." And you know what that means....
THE GRADE:
C+
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