1. Jungle Book (SNES)(Platformer)
Well, since Together Retro is about licensed 2D platformers, and I own a few I haven't beaten, I figured I'd sit down and try to knock out a few. Jungle Book happened to be the first one I booted up, and it pretty much gave me everything I dislike about platformers in one package. Now mind you, this is a genre I tend to avoid, so getting me to love a game of this type is naturally harder anyway. And I do have some high points that I greatly appreciated. But at its best, this game is a mixed bag.
What did it get right? Well, the visuals are quite nice for the most part. It's a pretty game, with a nice color palette. Some levels I liked, and some I thought were stunning, like the waterfall, the treetops at dusk, and the final level through the wastes. I also love the music that accompanies these, with occasional distant animal noises that remind me I'm running through the jungles of India here. What's that? An elephant in the distance. Or chattering monkeys. Or the growl of something with fangs that I do not want to encounter. Excellent work on these parts.
However, there are also some problems here, particularly because of the vast number of secrets. Because the devs wanted to hide a lot in each level (and they did, there are tons of nooks and crannies to explore), sometimes you can't be sure if you can walk through an area or not. Sometimes you fall through a floor that you thought was there. Sometimes you get lost behind a wall of something that prevents you from seeing your sprite, and when an enemy is on top of you, this can get deadly fast. It's something of a necessary evil to fit in all those secrets, and I am impressed by just how expansive some of these levels feel with how much is hidden away, but it would be nice to be able to see.
Hit detection is problematic. Not with your weapons, mind you; no, the throwing banana and various coconuts, fruit, and whatever else you're arming yourself with all work out quiet nicely. But grabbing onto things, jumping onto enemies, and ensuring that you're really going to be able to snag that swinging vine can all be problematic. And you have to do a lot of it, sometimes over bottomless pits. There are also multiple leaps of faith too, and while Mowgli can look around to an extent, a feature which is necessary, it's still not going to keep you from occasionally throwing yourself off a cliff and hoping for the best.
Now level design can be quite clever, and not just due to the secrets I keep praising. In one area, blocks slide in and out of the walls to briefly form platforms. In another, you must jump across coiled snakes to use them as springs and traverse a thorny patch. In the final level, you have to hop across falling vulture feathers. These touches both add to the cartoonish nature of the gameplay but at times feel absolutely inspired, particularly the vulture feathers. I found that immensely clever.
One area where I have a big problem is the boss fights. There are four, and the bosses change their attacks depending on how much health they have left, but holy crap do they have a ton of health. The snake Kaa has seeking attacks, Shere Khan can actually stunlock you to death, and King Louie has a trick to winning which involves hitting his band to make him dance. Each one is tough in their own way, but as they change their patterns, the way you fight them changes too.
Speaking of stunlocks, my biggest pet peeve of the game is the limited invincibility you get after being hit. It's short. Really short. Like the same enemy may knock off half your health before you realize it short. And with some of the erratic movements of enemies like the killer bats or the rapid fire of spitting snakes, this gets to be a problem fast. You have to be careful, or else you'll be seeing the game over screen a lot.
The game doesn't offer much in the way of options, though if you want a quicker jaunt, you can enable Practice difficulty. This is only the first three levels of the game, just enough to give you a taste and pit you against the first boss. There are 11 levels in total if I recall correctly, ending with the battle against Shere Khan as lighting strikes the tree above you and gives you a torch to use to fight him.
Look, Jungle Book has its moments, but I don't see folks talk about this game the way they do Aladdin and The Lion King, and with good reason. If you want to get into the Disney movie line of platformers, start with those. Then check out the likes of Jungle Book and Pinocchio.