A port of Mickey Mouse
Bugs Bunny must save his girlfriend Honey Bunny from Witch Hazel's enemy-filled castle. There are 28 levels with keys to collect. In each level is a locked door leading to the next level; to open it, the player must collect eight keys placed throughout the level. Various Looney Tunes characters are encountered, including Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Tasmanian Devil, Beaky Buzzard, Spike, Merlin the Magic Mouse, and Tweety.
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Watched someone at a Swim meet play this and it made me get into games outside of DOS. Pretty terrible but far from unplayable
everyone's being too mean in their reviews :(
i certainly got a lot of milage out of this puzzler.
i certainly got a lot of milage out of this puzzler.
(This is the 38th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Well, I regret keeping this on my list. I have The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout as the 2nd worst game I've played in 1990's batch, but it was sort of entertainingly mediocre, so I thought I'd double down and play another Bugs Bunny themed video game.
This time, that game is The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle II, a GameBoy game that initially released in April 26, 1991. Wikipedia lists it as an "Action" game, which I think makes it the least "action" Action game I've ever played. I'd rather call it a Puzzle game myself. I would also call it a bad game. Check out the "Overall" part to see my overall thoughts, check out any part you want if you want more detailed thoughts there.
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STORY(TELLING)/CHARACTERS | 1/10
Very simple. Bugs Bunny's girlfriend, Honey Bunny, is captured by "Witch Hazel" and must be rescued by finishing 28 levels. The game starts by showing an image of the Witch's castle and the picture of Honey Bunny on top of it. Then the game starts. You'll get a tiny scene at the end but that's pretty much it. So pretty typical stuff for a puzzle / platformer type affair.
GAMEPLAY | 5/20
You start a level and find yourself on a screen filled with enemies and doors. The goal is to enter these doors, find all keys, and then exit through the designated exit door. In between, you also have to pick up weapons or a hammer for example to kill enemies or break some obstacles in your path.
The idea is simple. The level is presented to you as a puzzle, and you have to figure out how to perform all necessary tasks in an order that allows you to beat it without getting hit. Because if you get hit even once, you die and have to restart the level.
From the get go, I gotta say that the game design here is not that good. First, instead of simply picking up keys on the screen, you have to enter doors, all of which simply have a key. So why not just leave the keys on the screen and forego the minutes and minutes of time you will lose on opening all these doors over the entire play time.
Second, the game seriously lacks in features. Opening doors and collecting keys is all you do. Apart from picking up those weapons, you can also use a rope to get to another platform and you can step on platforms that are marked as "Up" to jump up. The game picks up in difficulty the further you go of course, but this is generally it. There is a small sense of reward of finishing a level that you feel and the game as a package is much, much tighter than Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout, but it isn't really fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 4/10
No voice acting. I didn't like the sound design that much. The sound of picking up keys got a bit irritating after a while, and the OST is only 7 minutes long. It's not the good kind of retro OST either, as its sound quality often is just subpar.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 3/10
It's an early 90s GameBoy game, so it looks like you'd think it looks. There isn't much attention to detail here and the fact that jumping platforms are simply labeled "Up" shows how little passion went into this. There are 5 games of this type by the way.
ATMOSPHERE | 2/10
There is no atmosphere to feel here. You could put anyone as the main character and it wouldn't really feel any more out of place. If you are going to enjoy this, you'll enjoy it for the puzzle design, but I doubt it will offer you any value in any shape or form by the way it looks and feels.
CONTENT | 4/10
There are 28 levels here and a boss fight. It's not a terrible offering. If you enjoy the puzzle aspect of this game, there is plenty here to work your brain over, but I don't know why you would choose to play this if you could instead play any of the other 4 Crazy Castle iterations or, here is a thought, a good puzzle game, of which there are thousands.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
It works in that each level has a guaranteed way of being passable if you figure out the right way. Figuring that out on some levels can be somewhat of a challenge, so it does its job as a puzzle game, but it's too repetitive and not that fun to begin with.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
There is nothing here that could be considered innovating. As a concept, it works, that's probably the best thing to say here.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
Levels have a specific way of being completed and you won't really do anything differently the second time out. All you could do is try to finish the levels faster but why would you?
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Unlike the other Bugs Bunny game I've played, this didn't play at constant 15 FPS, so that's a big plus. It works from start to finish without issue.
OVERALL
This is a repetitive, boring puzzle game that feels like a reskin of a reskin of a reskin, even if it isn't so necessarily. There just isn't anything here to make it stand out, the way the game is designed is just not fun and I was shocked to find out that by the end of 90s, it had sold over 200.000 copies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Well, I regret keeping this on my list. I have The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout as the 2nd worst game I've played in 1990's batch, but it was sort of entertainingly mediocre, so I thought I'd double down and play another Bugs Bunny themed video game.
This time, that game is The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle II, a GameBoy game that initially released in April 26, 1991. Wikipedia lists it as an "Action" game, which I think makes it the least "action" Action game I've ever played. I'd rather call it a Puzzle game myself. I would also call it a bad game. Check out the "Overall" part to see my overall thoughts, check out any part you want if you want more detailed thoughts there.
____________
STORY(TELLING)/CHARACTERS | 1/10
Very simple. Bugs Bunny's girlfriend, Honey Bunny, is captured by "Witch Hazel" and must be rescued by finishing 28 levels. The game starts by showing an image of the Witch's castle and the picture of Honey Bunny on top of it. Then the game starts. You'll get a tiny scene at the end but that's pretty much it. So pretty typical stuff for a puzzle / platformer type affair.
GAMEPLAY | 5/20
You start a level and find yourself on a screen filled with enemies and doors. The goal is to enter these doors, find all keys, and then exit through the designated exit door. In between, you also have to pick up weapons or a hammer for example to kill enemies or break some obstacles in your path.
The idea is simple. The level is presented to you as a puzzle, and you have to figure out how to perform all necessary tasks in an order that allows you to beat it without getting hit. Because if you get hit even once, you die and have to restart the level.
From the get go, I gotta say that the game design here is not that good. First, instead of simply picking up keys on the screen, you have to enter doors, all of which simply have a key. So why not just leave the keys on the screen and forego the minutes and minutes of time you will lose on opening all these doors over the entire play time.
Second, the game seriously lacks in features. Opening doors and collecting keys is all you do. Apart from picking up those weapons, you can also use a rope to get to another platform and you can step on platforms that are marked as "Up" to jump up. The game picks up in difficulty the further you go of course, but this is generally it. There is a small sense of reward of finishing a level that you feel and the game as a package is much, much tighter than Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout, but it isn't really fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 4/10
No voice acting. I didn't like the sound design that much. The sound of picking up keys got a bit irritating after a while, and the OST is only 7 minutes long. It's not the good kind of retro OST either, as its sound quality often is just subpar.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 3/10
It's an early 90s GameBoy game, so it looks like you'd think it looks. There isn't much attention to detail here and the fact that jumping platforms are simply labeled "Up" shows how little passion went into this. There are 5 games of this type by the way.
ATMOSPHERE | 2/10
There is no atmosphere to feel here. You could put anyone as the main character and it wouldn't really feel any more out of place. If you are going to enjoy this, you'll enjoy it for the puzzle design, but I doubt it will offer you any value in any shape or form by the way it looks and feels.
CONTENT | 4/10
There are 28 levels here and a boss fight. It's not a terrible offering. If you enjoy the puzzle aspect of this game, there is plenty here to work your brain over, but I don't know why you would choose to play this if you could instead play any of the other 4 Crazy Castle iterations or, here is a thought, a good puzzle game, of which there are thousands.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
It works in that each level has a guaranteed way of being passable if you figure out the right way. Figuring that out on some levels can be somewhat of a challenge, so it does its job as a puzzle game, but it's too repetitive and not that fun to begin with.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
There is nothing here that could be considered innovating. As a concept, it works, that's probably the best thing to say here.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
Levels have a specific way of being completed and you won't really do anything differently the second time out. All you could do is try to finish the levels faster but why would you?
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Unlike the other Bugs Bunny game I've played, this didn't play at constant 15 FPS, so that's a big plus. It works from start to finish without issue.
OVERALL
This is a repetitive, boring puzzle game that feels like a reskin of a reskin of a reskin, even if it isn't so necessarily. There just isn't anything here to make it stand out, the way the game is designed is just not fun and I was shocked to find out that by the end of 90s, it had sold over 200.000 copies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
I got this game for free because it was in the Game Boy Color I bought from a Goodwill like ten years ago. I barely remember it, but it seemed like kind of a generic platformer type thing. If it wasn't there I likely would never have played this.