Bug!
Sega Saturn
Originally reviewed HERE
October 10, 2017 (about 9 years ago)
All right, here we go. Back to Bug! yet again. When I last played it in 2017, I had a pretty rotten time with it. I enjoyed the premise of the game, and all the warm nostalgic feelings it invoked. But did I have a good time with it? No. I called it a frustrating affair that I would probably never play again. And I gave it a C-.
Why am I playing it again? Because of my kid. He's been interested in looking through my physical game collection lately. Bug! is a title that always seems to catch his eye. Unfortunately, my Saturn is in the basement in a storage bin, and I'd be absolutely shocked if it still worked. It was on its last legs the last time I turned it on, which was probably around the time of my first review of Bug! - 9 years ago.
I decided to emulate the game online so that he could check it out and play it for himself. He played it for about five minutes before losing interest and going back to Spyro: Reignited and Sackboy for the PS4. That's about what I expected. The game probably seems very primitive to him. BUT - he still wanted to see the bosses. He's always been fascinated by boss characters in video games for some reason.
So I decided to keep on playing. Except this time I was playing with the ability to save the game and drop out at any time. I had only ever played the game on original hardware before. This was like a revelation. It made the game so much more accessible. And not in an "I suck too bad at gaming to play through the difficult original so now I am cheating" kind of way. Being able to save and reload truly makes this game a more fun and playable experience.
Like I said in my initial review, the game is flat out difficult - and not in a fair way. It can get very cheap and unfair, very fast. The stages in each world are extremely long. Some can take over an hour to beat. And if you use up all of your lives, even if you are on the final stage of one of the worlds, you have to go back to the first one when you die and do it all over again.
Being able to save at any point takes most of the frustration out of the game. Imagine sinking several hours into the game, and then mistiming a jump and having to replay the last two hours again. Now I can just save before a difficult jump. And if I die, I can reload it and try again. Call it cheating, call it whatever you want. I call it making an inaccessible game accessible.
I played through Bug! from beginning to end, making sure to show my son each of the bosses. Even with save states, it still took me a long time due to the length and sheer volume of the levels. I'd say it took me a week to make it through the game. It's got a lot of meat on its bones, that's for sure.
I can definitely see where I would have gotten frustrated on past playthroughs. The slingshot sections are the absolute worst. You have to launch yourself from a slingshot and bounce off of bugs that are flying back and forth in the air, in in attempt to cross a large chasm. It would be easier to do if this was in 2D side-scrolling mode. But you have to do it when you are walking "up" on the 3D plane, where it is nearly impossible to judge or time distances. Even using save states, it took me five or six tries to make it through just one of these jumps. If I had been playing on original hardware, just one of these slingshot areas would have ended my game immediately. In fact, I'm kind of impressed with myself that I was able to do this in the past. But good grief. No wonder I don't think back fondly on this game.
I've always wanted to like this game so much. It was my first Saturn game. I remember renting it as a kid and playing it for dozens of hours on end. It looks good. It has a sense of humor. I like the giant stages with all the branching paths. All the makings of a truly great game are right there, which makes the end result of the game so frustrating. They came so close to making an all-time classic platformer. But they forgot to make the game fun.
My opinion on the game has increased since my 2017 playthrough, but that's not saying much. It goes from a C- to a normal C. Big woop.
With all of that being said, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Bug! If you can find a way to play this, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. You may not like it, but I still think it is worth playing.
See you in 2050 when my grandkids become curious about this game and want me to turn it on for them...
THE GRADE:
C
For a complete index of all my past posts and game reviews, click
>HERE<
No comments:
Post a Comment