neat little gem. from what i've played and seen from treasure, their whole thing seems to be doing these absurdly awesome and cinematic 2d games and this one is no difference. three of these boss fights are just incredibly raw with multiple phases and crazy concepts, reminiscent of something from gunstar heroes or contra hard corps.
this game does a thing where it mixes actual 3d with the kind of pre-rendered 3d that donkey kong country did, and this gives the already cute artstyle a cool edge to it.
the gameplay is good, a lil hard to get used to at first but becomes pretty intuitive later on. a couple spots where the odd puzzles become a little cryptic, including one near the beginning of the game where you're just supposed to know which ball to wiggle. there's also an olympic games part where you basically have to button mash to win three seperate sprint races, each getting twice as long as the last one, which just felt stupid and reminded me of mario party or something. other than that, yeah the gameplay feels nice. it's overall a mostly easy game, with the exception of a couple notably tough bosses. if you like treasure's usual antics, definitely give this one a go

This game is equal parts a mixed bag, and wonderful.

One the one hand, the "shake mechanic" and overall gameplay aren't necessarily my favorite. The game is hardly "perfect", and certainly could have played smoother, or had some more interesting level designs.

On the OTHER hand, on a system that had all but abandoned 2D gaming (to my great sorrow), here was a game that helped illustrate WHY they shouldn't have. The game is mostly 2D, with prerendered graphics, though there are some stages, and even bosses, that have polygonal elements. But it is a pure side scroller, and while it's not THE most beautiful game (Yoshi's Story looked better, well, at least the sprites did), it still helped to illustrate what games like Symphony of the Night had already proven. That there was still a LOT that 2D gaming had to offer, and with more powerful 32/64 bit hardware, there was a lot more that 2D games could do than we had yet seen, be it graphics or inventive level designs, etc.

This game isn't amazing, by any means, but I was still very fond of it, and it was one of the handful of N64 games I actually owned myself in the late 90s, on my original system. There is still a good amount of fun to be had, once you get used to the gameplay, and it's still one of my favorite N64 titles.

This is one particular game that my perspective has wildly changed over time, I'm still on the fence how good I consider it to be.

What I can say for sure is that you will not find another N64 game that has so many unique and risky ideas crammed into it, it doesn't always stick the landing and can come off as incoherent at times, but no matter what the game is fun (about 90% of the time anyway) There's so much "charm", style, and personality that really comes through in this game, in a way that few games of this genre have. It's one that I can tell the developers actually enjoyed making.

The story of this game is complete nonsense it's very quirky and random, there is a plot but this is not a game you should play for story and it isn't meant to be taken seriously, even though they clearly spent a lot of time on it, the game is full of cutscenes and character interactions, the best aspect is how much character is given to the main protagonist.

The movement in the game is perfect, you can cancel other moves into each other and this creates opportunities for more skilled play. The movement and variety in what control you have is amazing and extremely well polished.
One problem most players will probably deal with is that the way you control the game is also completely non-traditional and will take some time to adjust to, it can be a lot to come to terms with.

The point of the game is to grab, throw, and shake things and there's secrets and small simple puzzles built around it.
The bosses are very unique and fun to fight, mostly a test of reaction and problem solving.

I went back to play this years later and noticed how easy it was to break, and how some bosses are just a pattern of moves you repeat until it's defeated, and many levels are a gimmick and nothing more, at times it's so easy it's mindless, few parts were truly challenging it felt shallow in ways I hadn't noticed before.

Even worse is that the game doesn't have any "real" levels until halfway through world 1, they knew the controls would be hard to learn so it's a disguised tutorial that teaches all of the mechanics, this is great your first time, but repeat playthroughs these aren't as fun.

Now I tried going for 100% and then speedrunning it, and I realized what the developers were going for, sometimes the game is expecting you to create your own difficulty and try a certain playstyle and it isn't inherently difficult.

It's a lot of fun dashing through levels, and defeating bosses quickly without making damage, this game can be fun in that when you're good it makes you feel invincible and it is rewarded with a letter grade for how fast you were.

The sports competition level (yeah there's a sporting event level) is the big low point of the game for me and I never look forward to it, it doesn't really fit the rest of the game and doesn't add anything worthwhile character or story related.

There are a few places where the frame-rate drops sometimes in the 20s or 15s and those stick out unfortunately, the game typically will run at 60 and when it really counts and matters (when precise timing is needed) it doesn't slow down thankfully.

The worst thing I can say about this game is that it just ends too early, it feels likethere should have been a bit more, the final world is just a few empty levels with some (very good) bosses at the end, it feels a bit unfinished but it doesn't overstay it's welcome.
A few of the bosses really are just throwing them over and over for 3-4 minutes while they do nothing and those are just bad.

The main boss fights are definitely the best part of this game, I replay them the most and they are varied and have mutiple phases, in addition to just looking really cool, even for an N64 game there are moments that left me speechless because of how stylish and impressive they were, this game can be technically and artistically impressive sometimes.


The soundtrack fits the game, it's super weird but extremely catchy and has a good number of themes, most levels will have their own theme so they don't get repeated to much, and the boss themes really create intensity and tension that adds a lot to the "feel" of fighting the harder enemies.
It's unforgettable, for better or for worse you might hate the wierd music.

Characters have voice lines that are very memorable too, so there's that.

The game is 2D, meaning not polygonal, it's almost entirely pre-rendered so if you typically like or dislike that look you will probably feel the same here, the game does this quite well, and the animations are expressive and detailed the backgrounds are nice to look at.

Overall this game is hard to rate and even harder to sum up because it's all over the place, a real mixed bag, it just so happens that I enjoy a large portion of what it has to offer.
This is a very devisive game but you will never know what to expect and it's one that will likely stick with you. If you enjoy a unique challenge this may become one of your favorites but it may take some time to come to terms with it's strange quirkyness, there really is no other game like it.

It has several shortcomings, but the highs make up for a lot of it to me, you might not be so forgiving though.

Fun little game, Treasure never misses. Definitely not an absolute favorite of mine though, which is weird considering how much I like most of Treasure's other offerings. The platforming is honestly more action-puzzley rather than just flat out action like stuff such as gunstar heroes, dynamite headdy, or alien soldier, so maybe that might be why I didn't gravitate so much towards it. The boss fights are really fun though, as always with Treasure games. Characters and art are all done by the same guy that did Guardian Heroes and Gunstar Heroes, so if you like that aesthetic, then theres more of that here too. I also think that your completion percent directly corresponding to how many seconds of the ending you get to watch is really funny. Definitely a unique entry to the N64 library.

Treasure can be a little hit or miss for me. I love Dynamite Headdy and Alien Soldier, but I find Guardian Heroes and Gunstar Heroes to be pretty mediocre. Actually, writing it out like that, maybe it's just something about games with "Heroes" in the title. I mean, I don't like Sonic Heroes either... I must remember to investigate this further.

Mischief Makers is the cutest Treasure game I've played, and probably one of my favorites from their library, second only to Dynamite Headdy. It is also a Treasure game for a Nintendo system, which is a bit novel in itself given the company's adherence to Sega hardware, and being a 2D platformer from a generation where those were becoming less and less common, I was already inherently interested in it. I'll play just about any fifth gen 2D game, I just think they're neat. Something about the rising popularity of pre-rendered sprites meshing with fully-rendered 3D elements just appeals to me.

The grab-and-shake mechanic is a lot of fun to mess around with, and as was typical of Treasure, there's a lot of level variety to keep the game feeling fresh and engaging. Of course, sometimes its gimmicks don't land, and in particular there's a few bosses (especially in the late game) that just feel kind of weak. To get 100% completion, you also have to beat every boss encounter without taking damage, and I hate that crap. Whoever decided that should be a requirement clearly went on to program achievements for RetroAchivements.

But all the charm more than makes up for Mischief Maker's wobbly end game. Just don't let Marina Lightyears hold your baby.

Oh god I love this game

Was playing it when I was a little brat, couldn't understand English, yet it was a game that I loved so much I replayed it again and again... Even to this day !

And now that I understand English, it's waaaaaaaay better 'cause I can see how funny this game is !

And don't even get me started on the music... :D

I want to like this game. There's a lot in the game I really do enjoy. Marina is a fun character, and I really like the idea of a moveset focused on grabbing and shaking enemies is really fun, and for a lot of the game, it was.
I really like how the game looks, the blend of 2D sprites and 3D environments has always been one of my favorites. And the music was both fun and pretty unique from the games I've played.
Though I think I have two specific problems that kept me from enjoying the game. For one, I think the game constantly disoriented me. Multiple moments in the game had a constantly shifting aspect ratio, and one specific level made me start feeling nauseous. The other major issue I had were the bosses, my inability to read their patterns or dodge their actions made the bosses feel more annoying that challenging. Sure, maybe I'm just not good at the game which is probably the case, but that doesn't stop me from being annoyed, y'know?
There's a lot that I do enjoy in this game, but those certain aspects made the game a lot more dreadful of an experience. Though maybe I should've taken a break instead of playing the entire game in a single sitting.

Pretty alright! This feels like a sandbox of ideas for completely different platforming games that don't exist. None of them go too in-depth which is kind of disappointing when you find one that you really like. The controls felt a little clunky - double tapping to dash works really well on the D-Pad (the intended movement buttons), but everything else doesn't. Couldn't care much about the story, it's one of those "we're making fun of tropes here" things but it still tries to keep you emotionally invested somehwo which didn't work for me. The graphics are really cool, mixing 2D and 3D in a way that looks goofy at worse and stunning at its best.

Playing Mischief Makers was much like the time when, while on the mend from reconstructive foot surgery, I was hopped up on medical drugs and experienced vivid hallucinations where I belonged to a community of mole-people that revered Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse as holy gospel. At the very least, it made just as much sense: not one of the game’s many episodic narratives operate on any level of coherency, gleefully shifting from self-referential wit to non-sequitur plot beats at the drop of a hat. Mischief Makers is an arresting fever dream much as it is a deeply-committed comedy, eccentrically haphazard without any regard to the player’s sanity, not the least in cyborg protagonist Marina and her core “shaking” mechanic: an inevitable temptation into anarchy that violates friend and foe alike.

Hence why it’s difficult to get a bead on what, exactly, turned me off. It’s easy to say that Mischief Makers’ pledge to absurdity frequently smothers its sense of telegraphy: from poorly-conveyed puzzles to spontaneous visual overload with explosions and enemy swarms galore, I cannot count how many times I was forced to consult a guide, let alone utter “but why?!” in the face of its many inanities. (Even in instances I wholly enjoyed, mind; dare not spoil the circumstances behind “Blockman Rises”, as I suspect is the case among the game’s impassioned clique, but know that I shook that small child with glee and was not disappointed with the results.)

Yet I recall how a close friend recently elaborated upon his lifelong confusion surrounding another early N64 game – Bomberman 64, a game that’s personally never invited contempt – and I can’t help but wonder if the culprit is none other than personal taste. I make no joy in proclaiming this: I often champion such obscure games, and with how Mischief Makers has the ingredients of everything I adore – inspired mechanics, absurdist comedy, obvious anime influences, and just being so gosh-darned admirable in carrying the two-dimensional torch within 3D gaming’s advent -- I balk at the thought: shouldn’t this be a game I’d wholeheartedly embrace?

But the high’s come down, and I’m forced to confront the frustrating reality that, alas, it’s all just a little too opaque; too impenetrable in its motives. I’d never dream of calling it bad even in the face of more tangible, grounded criticism – the controls never gel, many levels end right when the momentum kicks off, and the elderly professor’s “durr hurr pervy old man lusts after own creation” shtick is painfully outdated – but much as I want to dismiss Mischief Makers’ foibles and root in the corner of Treasure’s forgotten gem, I’m reminded that you can’t force yourself to fall in love. Such is the “in-club” language of cult games like these, I suppose.

yeah do the rum shaker, the thug shaker. yeah you heard me! go down and spread those thighs.

SHAKE SHAKE

Mischief Makers was the third game I completed out of the five N64 games that sat in my backlog of games for over or nearly a decade. However, I believe this game was the last one out of those five that I bought. I remember starting my first playthrough I believe in 2014 which was a bit later than all of the others that I have reviewed and will review after this one. Besides the usual reason that 99.9% of the games I have played but never beat stay in my backlog for years, I remember getting stuck on a level but for whatever reason it didn't occur to me to look up a walkthrough. That being said, I finally beat it and like most of Treasure's other offerings is definitely deserving of its cult following.

You play as a robot girl named Marina on a mission to save Professor Theo and eventually the world from an evil empire led by Emperor Leo. In order to do so you will have to shake-shake your way through many levels that will require you to think outside the box and get familiar with how the game plays.

Similar to Treasure's other N64 classic Sin and Punishment, the controls take a little bit to get used to. It probably took me like 10 minutes to figure out how to do most basic things and longer to really get a feel for the controls. There were a few levels where the puzzles were either cryptic or just plain annoying like the one where you traverse a stormy ice mountain or the level right before you fight Sasquatch where you had to go through the right path by looking at the numbers. Despite the few frustrating levels this game had, they never dampened the experience.

There are a lot of positive things to say about Mischief Makers. The 2d sprites look great, the game is filled to the brim with charm and personality, and once you get used to the controls, Marina's movement feels great. It also is incredibly fair since you can get up to two bars of health which should be more than enough to deal with enemies and the bosses you fight. Besides the few annoying levels this game has, I thought most of the game was fun, short, and at the right level of challenge.

While it isn't my favorite title from Treasure, it is still a great 2d platformer made for a system that is criminally lacking in them. If Ikaruga, Dynamite Heddy, and Gunstar Heroes can be ported to every platform known to man, Mischief Makers should get the same treatment.