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[zafo999]

Mischief Makers is celebrating it's 10th birthday this year, and to celebrate, I'm going to try and let people know that it exists. Mischief Makers is an action/platformer game developed by Treasure and released for the N64. It garnered mediocre reviews and then quickly fell into obscurity. I consider it one of the most underrated games of all time. Mischief Makers is a 2D side-scroller that takes some cues from Gunstar Heroes (also by Treasure) and adds to it with a wide variety of puzzles and a refreshing amount of creative freedom on the part of the player.

You play as Marina, a robotic maid who was built by and must protect the kidnap-prone Prof. Theo. You start off running, jumping, and dashing as you might expect from such a game. But when you encounter enemies, that's when it starts to get interesting. Marina does not carry any weapons or her own, however, she can pick up, throw, and shake nearly every enemy in the game. Not only that, the same can be done with the projectiles that are fired at you, the random items laying around each level, and even your on-screen allies. Shaking a person may cause them to drop gems which you may then use to buy extra continues or fill your life bar. Picking up and shaking a gun can cause it to fire more rapidly, or cause it to home in on enemies instead of shooting straight ahead. This type of experimentation is found throughout the game and really helps keeps things fresh. The pace and variety of the game is wonderful. You'll find yourself in docile environments where you must simply help somebody with a task without getting killed, followed by very hostile environments where you will be fighting giant monsters inside volcanoes, then there are levels where you cannot die at all and simply have a little brain teaser to occupy yourself with. It all ties together into a smooth little narrative that will keep the controller in your hands for hours.

The boss fights are fast-paced, frequent, and very unique. I love a good boss fight, and MM delivers bigtime. The game often offers you several different options for defeating each boss, depending on how clever you are. For instance, you must, at one point, fight a large frog-like creature. At first, you may find that it is best to dodge his large sticky tongue as it slings toward you, then leap behind him, grab his back legs and throw him into a wall. This works, but if you REALLY want to get the job done like a pro, you can time it just right so that you grab his tongue just as it makes contact with you, then shake like crazy! He will be lifted by his tongue and repeatedly slammed into the floor, taking exponentially more damage in less time, until he manages to writhe out of your grip. This type of thinking is helpful, as the game grades your completion of each level based on your time. This game does what I believe so few games do, it rewards creative problem solving. If there's only one way to do things, the game gets stale, and there's no replay value. But if you allow for people to develop their own style of problem solving, then no two people will play the game the same way. Also concerning replay value, there is a hard-to-obtain gold gem hidden in every level that requires either some clever thinking, quick reflexes, or both in order to obtain. Each gold gem adds a few seconds to the final epilogue movie after you beat the game. So there's also that added incentive to play through again and see the full ending of the story.

The graphics are probably the biggest issue that people will take with MM. You have to remember, that 1997 was still feeling the shockwave from Super Mario 64. A sea of 3D platforming games crashed down into game stores in hopes of reaping the rewards of the bar that Mario had recently raised. It was definitely NOT cool to be playing a 2D sidescroller in 1997, especially one like MM which held no shame in it's low resolution sprites. Throughout the game, you'll notice many jagged edges and cheeseball 3-D background elements. I don't quite consider it ugly by any means, but certainly not up to par for it's time. Stylistically, it's very pleasing, though. Lot's of odd geometric shapes and goofy anime-like machinery, and everything has a creepy Cactaur-esque face plastered to it. Design-wise, it is very much a subscriber to what I call "Video Game Logic". Any given thing could come to life and start shooting meteors or boomerangs at you. You can ride on top of missiles, toss a giant robot 100 feet into the air, play dodgeball against a defenseless kitten, trap ghosts in a jar, throw the jar into a pit and call it a day. A grand time is had by all! (seriously, though, you can actually do all that in this game)




Mischief Makers is a solid, fast-paced piece of 2D fun that works in a casual capacity as well as an addition to an all-night game-a-thon. If you find it used somewhere, it will probably be only like $10, so I highly recommend you give it a shot. There aren't too many games like it. Even if it's not your type of game, you'll still be able to appreciate the originality.

[Blood-Pigggy]

That's some hideous box art.

Good review by the way, I like Treasure, and I've played the Gunstar Heroes title on the GBA a lot.

[Tito]

I subscribe everything you said. I loved that game.

People, listen to him!!

[zafo999]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tito @ Sep 16 2007, 02:45 PM) [snapback]311271[/snapback]</div>

I subscribe everything you said. I loved that game.

People, listen to him!!
[/b]

Yes! Join us! Do not resist!