Knuckles Chaotix

I promise I’m done looking at Sonic games. Well... no, I can’t promise that. I’m just really into Sonic, pre-Wii era Sonic anyway, and there’s a ton of games featuring Sonic characters that don’t really get that much air time. I mean, let’s face it, when people think about Sonic, they think about the Sonic Quartet-- all Genesis games that were all... well, really great, but still! How many people think of Tails Adventure when they think of Sonic games? Or Sonic Triple Trouble? Or, hell, Knuckles Chaotix?

You shut up.

Despite the fact that damn near no one I’ve met even knew this game existed, Sonic Heroes managed to stick three of the four characters that no one’s ever heard of into its game, making Sonic Heroes responsible for the re-emergence of four characters featured in unpopular games. Yay! But also Big.

Oh god I want to punch you.

Knuckles Chaotix, or just Chaotix, was released on the 32X in 1995. Don’t worry, if you’re like any other sane human being, you probably never played it. That’s because the 32X is a BEAST of a peripheral, requiring its own power source and no more than two connections to the Genesis. It was just difficult. But if you’re like me and you did have the 32X, don’t worry. You’re not insane. But I imagine you were pissed off with the 32X’s power adaptor.

Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix is a strange game as far as Sonic is concerned. Firstly, Knuckles Chaotix is really long, in comparison to most Sonic games. I guess it’s shorter than Sonic 3 and Knuckles, but it was longer than Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles if you looked at the games separately.  So it has a save feature, which is similar to the one in Sonic 3. Yeah, some of you are like, “So what? I beat Sonic 3 in two minutes and I was giving birth and building rockets and playing chess at the same time!” Knuckles Chaotix is much longer, and it’s probably because the gameplay style isn’t the same as any of the other Sonic games until at least around the Gameboy Advance era.

In Sonic 2, SEGA added Tails as a secondary character for two players and since then, Tails has been a re-occuring and relatively welcomed character, despite the fact that for some reason he’s always just building stuff when he can fly and swim. Well, Tails’ inclusion in Sonic 2 pointed out a major flaw in AI at the time. Mostly, AI is stupid. If you don’t want the AI character to beat the game, then you have to dumb it down. But when you do that, the AI starts doing things that you don’t want it to do, like stepping on breakable bridges before you can reach them, or repeatedly killing itself instead of helping you. It is possible to create AI that isn’t completely retarded, but I guess no one thought Tails was that bad in Sonic 2. Boy, were they wrong.

Oh, but I love you anyway! You're so cute!

So Knuckles Chaotix set about it at least trying to make a second player AI that wasn’t dumb. They did this by introducing Ring Power. Ring Power allows for a lot of cool gameplay elements. Ring Power lets you call your partner to you, allows you to have your partner stand still and lets you use them as a sling, and even makes it possible for you to reach high places. But it makes the AI second player pretty much do nothing but follow you around, which, while it sounds awesome, is actually kind of annoying. You could at least count on hilarious Tails deaths with Sonic 2, right?

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

So again, not so much with Knuckles Chaotix. You get to choose from Knuckles, Mighty, Espio, Vector, and Charmy, but if those names confuse you, that’s because these characters are actually from the Sonic Comic series. Yes, there are hundreds more Sonic Furry Pals (TM) that have yet to be seen in the games. For all of you wondering, here’s a picture of what you’re missing:

Also Robotnik is dead and Eggman is a computer version of him from an alternate universe (not pictured)

“Gee whiz,” you say, presumably because you’re from like, the 1950s, “I’m learning a lot about Sonic today, but not too much about Knuckles Chaotix. How about you do your job there, bucko?”

Right, well. About Knuckles Chaotix... Despite it being connected to the Death Egg Saga, it is NOT a part of the Death Egg Saga. (The Death Egg Saga are those games having to do with the creation and use of the Death Egg by Dr. Robotnik.) This game takes place after Sonic and Knuckles, which takes place after Sonic 3, which takes place after Sonic 2. To recap: Dr. Robotnik builds a Death Star-- the Death Egg-- and then is like, “Man, I should totally take over the world,” in Sonic 2. But as it turns out-- if you beat the game-- Sonic doesn’t let that happen.

As it turns out, it wasn't unstoppable.

But, on his way to assured death by falling in Sonic 3, Robotnik’s Death Egg happened to hit Angel Island, a floating island that normally floated over the oceans, covered by clouds to prevent others from noticing its existence. There’s a lot of stuff having to do with legends in the Sonic universe here, but suffice it to say that Knuckles is not stupid, but he IS sheltered. He believed that the Death Egg might have been an egg in a legend, so he (for the most part) pretty much just leaves it be. He’s busy checking the Chaos Emerald Alters when he runs across Robotnik, who REALLY wants to use the Chaos Emeralds to get the Death Egg back into space. To do this, he tricks Knuckles into attacking Sonic, saying something along the lines of “There’s this blue hedgehog and he’s mean and stuff. Also I guess he wants the giant emerald on your floating island and all the other emeralds too, but I totally don’t and in no way am I evil. PS, I came here for the science. PPS, I really like what you’re doing with your quills.” So Knuckles falls for it and tries to stop Sonic from saving the world, but he fails (unless you never beat the game, in which case, he’s waiting for you).  

Sonic and Knuckles deals with the ramifications of the Death Egg hitting the ground, or more specifically, the ramifications of not destroying the Death Egg before. It’s pretty hard to get rid of without someone like Luke Skywalker around.

So anyway, in Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic learns about the Master Emerald, which is what made Angel Island float before Robotnik came along. Also, the Chaos Emeralds, using the power of the Master Emerald, become Super Emeralds. The Super Emeralds are kind of screwed up, so Sonic decides that he will save the day (yet again) and stop Dr. Robotnik’s evil plans, sort of with Knuckles’ help, although there’s no indication that they actually spoke with each other about this, unless you read the comics, which all are loosely based on the games for this particular saga. The Death Egg Saga is completed in Sonic 4, which SEGA is currently butchering as we speak. Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix’ tie in is that after the events of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, a mysterious island shows up and kind of sort of has something to do with Sonic 3.

Behold, we are awesome (and yes, the gray one is missing here)!

A part of the story I skipped in Sonic 3 is that Sonic finds a ring inscribed with mysterious writing, which is what alerts him to the presence of Angel Island, in a really roundabout fashion. Chaotix features those rings as “Chaos Rings,” rings imbued with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Most of the cast in Chaotix outside of Knuckles go to the new island because... but Knuckles goes because he’s interested in the island that showed up.  Fortunately for Knuckles, but unfortunately for literally everyone else involved, only the new characters are caught by Dr. Robotnik and placed in the Combi Confiner, which freezes them in time. Knuckles first runs into Espio and after saving him, the two of them sally forth towards adventure-- and also they’re going to go defeat Robotnik.

You select a character to use via the Combi Catcher.

There’s a lot you can say about Knuckles, but one of them probably isn’t “he’s immortal.” But in this game, he sort of is. Knuckles Chaotix doesn’t feature lives, and as such, Knuckles and his partner never really die, perse. If you fail super, super hard, then you get sent back to the game lobby, where you save, exit, and switch partners.

Also, you select the stage there.

Other Sonic games are separated into Zones and Acts, but Knuckles Chaotix is separated into Attractions, of which there are five. The reason-- I think-- they’re separated into Attractions is because the Westernized version of the game screwed up the story big time, forgetting that Knuckles guards Angel Island and not Carnival Island. The Western version goes on to make Carnival Island a high-tech amusement park powered by the Chaos Emeralds, which means that the island definitely doesn’t work because Knuckles shouldn’t have the emeralds at this point. Anyway, my point is that a amusement park has attractions, thus the naming convention of “Attractions”. But despite the name, the Attractions are pretty much just Zones, and they’re really weird ones at that. Like I said, there are five Attractions and each Attraction is split into five stages. The time of day changes from stage to stage (depending on the amount of time you spend in the level) but I’ve never had three instances of any particular time of day. There are four different times of day-- Morning, Day, Evening, and Night-- and it only really affects the boss of the stage, if there is one, and the placement of the enemies in the stage, as well as the number of enemies in the stage (somewhat, this probably also has to do with placement). The boss always occurs at the last stage, though.

Marina Madness in the Morning!

The Special Stage occurs at the end of each level, and, for the most part, these special stages are like the sphere special stages in Sonic 3 and Knuckles. They’re fun because they’re in 3D! Of course, this means you can fall off of things and eventually die. So in that sense, not fun. But I like them! The object is to get a Chaos Ring.

On top of special stages, there are bonus stages, which occur when you have 20 rings. It’s pretty cool, but I almost never reach it-- I always have way too many rings by the end of the level-- but it reminds me of a part of Sonic CD that connects this game and Sonic CD in yet another way ( most of the dev team that worked on Sonic CD worked on this, too).

The ring mechanic, which is what makes this game the oddity that it is, is the main focus of just about anyone who talks about the game, mostly because it’s SUPER weird, as far as Sonic games go. You can use the ring, like I said, like a slingshot. Also, it’s used to push down buttons-- one character must stand still while the other pushes the button-- retrieve rings, toss your partner or yourself to new platforms, and so on. But, probably the weirdest thing is the Ring Recall, as I like to call it. The Ring Recall allows you to call your partner when he/it is far away (there are no girls in this game). It is possible to lose your partner, at which time, this move becomes necessary. When you lose your partner and you have no rings, that’s grounds for being sent back to the main room. But, you can call your partner without having rings. When you do this, the ring counter starts showing negative numbers. You can have up to 99 negative rings before the game penalizes you.

Man, these are a lot of words that still don’t really tell you much about the game... well, to be honest, Knuckles Chaotix is just a game you have to play to get. I mean, I can tell you all sorts of things about Knuckles Chaotix, but you won’t really understand it until you play the game-- seriously. Ah, well, I guess we can talk about Metal Sonic. He’s pretty cool and this is the game that followed the release of Sonic and Knuckles and we haven’t seen Metal Sonic in ages so... yeah, let’s talk about him. But from here on out, serious spoilers, you guys.

I assume that Dr. Robotnik (read: the producers) might have actually expected Sonic to be in this game and thus, did not make a new metal creature, like Metal Knuckles or something. But he only exists in Sonic R, which came out after this game. As such, the final boss is totally not Metal Knuckles or Mecha Knuckles (introduced in Sonic Advance and then discarded). It’s Metal Sonic, being badass, you know, because he can. Anyway, it would be SO BORING if it was just regular Metal Sonic, am I right? So SEGA pulled Emperor Metallix from the British Sonic the Comic series and renamed him. Well, he can’t be so bad, I mean Metal Sonic was menacing, but in the same way that an angry puppy is menacing. So Emperor Metalltix must be--

OH SWEET JESUS, HE'S HUGE.

Okay, okay. He’s huge, but he still looks like good ol’ Metal. He’s just red, with some shoulder pads. Plus, they’ll probably tone down the size for the game and--

OH GOD, WHAT ARE YOU

And he is every bit as huge as you think he is. In fact, in this picture, his body and legs are connected but that’s not how it is in the game. He’s actually bigger. Also, I guess this:

YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE HIS WHOLE BODY.

“Question,” you say, shaking your head at the screen. “How is this even possible. Like, as a boss, I mean.”

Oh, as a boss? He blows as a boss. What did you expect, he’s giant and unwieldy.

Metal Sonic Kai mostly just flies around looking super dumb, which is a huge letdown in more ways than one. I mean, teeny-weeny-super-cute Metal Sonic raced Sonic to his death (or Sonic’s death, if you never finished that boss battle) but this guy is like, “Eh, I could kill you guys, but I’m not in the mood. Maybe if you stick a cotton swab on the end of a broomstick and use it to pick my nose?” I’m not going to ruin the final battle for you, but I will tell you this: don’t pick Vector. Seriously, there’s one part where literally any other character does all of nothing and you still will win the game, but for Vector you actually have to push a button. Sad.

We can also talk a bit about the music and the graphics, but there’s really no reason to. You can probably tell from the screenshots that this game looks amazing. Also, SEGA normally writes phenomenal music for the Sonic series, culminating in the soundtrack for Sonic 3 that featured Michael Jackson. I don’t even know how they managed that, he was one of the biggest stars at around that time, wasn’t he? Now, Knuckles Chaotix pales in comparison to the original quartet, but the music is still good. It’s not as catchy as, say Chrome Gadget was, but it’s got it’s own charm to it and all of the music fits the feel of the game. That being said, this game feels like a grand adventure, which might be why it was so hard for me to explain it. It’s a huge, huge game filled with plenty of color, tons of stunning visuals, and a pretty fun game mechanic. All in all, Kunckles Chaotix is a funny little game that came and went, but it definitely deserves a look!

Sonic CD

Good old SEGA. Remember when they used to make consoles? Yeah, that was awesome. Except that most of their consoles were add-ons to the Genesis, making the poor Genesis look like some kind of weird demon UFO. Also, sometimes the add-ons didn’t work. And I guess they could’ve just released a new system altogether. Look, the point is that I really liked the Genesis, okay?

I LOVED YOU.

In case you somehow forgot this-- and trust me, I don’t blame you-- there was once a time when Mario and Sonic actually had a rivalry. Whose games were better? Sonic, the super cool blue hedgehog or Mario, who I don’t have anything awesome to say about because Sonic pretty much won this competition for me. Although nowadays, I guess you could say that Mario wins.

Except here. Are you kidding, Mario? Go eat some pasta.

Anyway, back when Sonic wasn’t falling in love with human females and his entourage of furry creature pals were in the single digits, SEGA released a super awesome game for a peripheral to the Genesis, SEGA CD. This game was of course Sonic CD, and let me tell you, it is a pretty badass game, if I do say so myself (which I do). Just so you know how awesome this game is, this game introduced the character Metal Sonic AND was written by Sonic’s creator, Naoto Ōshima. Yeah, I know what you’re (not) thinking: Didn’t Yuji Naka create Sonic? Well... yeah but also... no, not really. Ōshima, the lovable rapscallion that he is, created the character designs for both Sonic and Dr. Robotnik. If for some reason you don’t believe me, then try replaying Sonic the Hedgehog for Genesis. The Designer is BigIsland, which is a literal translation of his name, Ōshima. So... yeah, take that!

Yeah, okay. You didn’t come here to read about developers and all that jazz. You want to know about the game. So let’s talk story! What’s Sonic CD about?

Well, if you guessed that Sonic is trying to stop Robotnik from taking over the world, then congrats, you officially can figure out the premise to every Sonic game. The difference between this game and the other Sonic games at the time-- you know, besides being on SEGA CD-- is that the world in the game happens to be Little Planet and Sonic time travels.

No big whoop, am I right?

So what happens is pretty simple. Sonic’s just running around, presumably being awesome, when he happens upon Never Lake, which is where the miniature planet, Little Planet, shows up every year for exactly one month. I know this because I read the manual, the game doesn’t actually explain this. Anyway, Sonic sees that Little Planet is chained to the ground, figures it’s Robotnik’s doing, and decides he’s going to go kick some Robotnik butt before dinner time. So he runs up a chain and enters the planet and then continues to be epic for the remainder of the game. The game explains this in what is possibly the most awesome opening animatic to ever be an opening animatic.

WATCH THIS RIGHT NOW

You might’ve noticed that the music is too cool for words/cheesy. So we might as well talk about the music for this game right now.

Sega of America does this... thing with their version where they get Spencer Nielson and David Young to create soundtracks for the game. I’m not particularly sure why they do this-- it could be copyright issues or something. But the opening song and the overall theme, Sonic Boom, is the same in both the American and the Japan/Europe versions. The Japanese/European versions sampled from artists like Hall and Oates and Bob Marley, which is why I’m guessing that there were copyright issues with the songs. For each level there are three themes, and the only ones that were not changed were the past themes. But no matter what version you play, all the songs are amazing. Did you think they wouldn’t be? SEGA had a knack for making perfect music for the Sonic series. I’d put links to the music up, but that would take forever. Plus there’s 21 tracks, 14 of which have two versions, plus the tracks for other menus, boss battles, and so on... I mean it would take forever. But go ahead and look it up.

Alright, alright. Jeez, you're so hasty, you guys.

Standard Sonic rules as far as levels and zones apply here. Well, I guess if you played the original four on Genesis, you might be wondering what zones are and wonder where the acts went, but don’t worry, they’re the same thing. There are seven levels, each with three zones, where the last zone is a boss battle with the ever orb-shaped evil genius, Dr. Robotnik. Sonic spindashes with down + A, and he jumps with A, or any other button you pressed (unless you were playing the PC version of the game, in which case it’s whatever button you made into the jump button). It actually is toned down in this game, because you have to wait for the screen to slide to the left before you let go of down + A and you can’t rev up the Spindash in this game. No worries, though! If you press up + A, you get the Super Peel-Out instead, which is one of Sonic’s most recognizable feats despite the fact that the Super Peel-Out was never repeated in any other popular game (just Sonic Chaos, Triple Trouble, and Sonic Blast, all of which aren’t nearly as popular as the original quartet)... until Sonic appeared in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and even THEN it’s just a taunt.

The Peel-Out is faster than the Spindash. Just sayin'.

I know what you’re thinking. There was time travel in this game, right? Oh yeah. There totally is.

So the level pictured above is called Collision Chaos, the second level in the game (the first level of every Sonic game is always a Green Hill-esque level; in this game it’s based on a tropical island and is called Palmtree Panic). See the lives at the bottom at the screen? That lets you know that you’re in the present. But it looks like every Sonic game, right? That’s because you haven’t run into one of the special signposts.

See it? That thing that says “Past”? That’s how you travel through time. Also, there’s one that says “Future”, because time travel works both ways. It would be pretty awesome if, just by touching the sign you travelled through time, but that would be too easy. You have to run really fast for a while (without getting hit) until Sonic presumably breaks time itself and goes flying through time to the past (or future).

'Scuse me, just breaking time and being awesome. BBL - Sonic

So let’s say you were headed to the past, because you’re awesome and I like the past. Then you’ll see a landscape completely altered from the present. If only I had a picture of it...

Well what do you know.

Okay, okay, but what if you went to the future? I bet I don’t have a picture of that!

This is why you shouldn't bet money on things.

“This is all cool and whatnot,” you say, nodding your head in approval. “but why do I care about getting to the past or the future? I mean, yeah, time travel is awesome, but why are we doing it?” Obviously, because it’s awesome. Also, if you don’t, then you might end up fighting Robotnik in a place that looks like this:

Man, that sky is polluted.

Instead of somewhere that looks like this:

WELL WHAT IS THIS NOW

Of course, it’s up to you if you want every level to be a polluted stinking hellhole, you anti-environmental, garbage dumping, evil, terrible, awful... you! But you’re playing as Sonic, and he loves the environment and also if you want to actually beat the game you’re gonna have to do this, so I guess it kind of sucks if you really like the dystopian apocalyptic future that you get just by running straight through the levels. Or I guess you could just get all the time stones.

Probably should have mentioned that before.

So if you’re in the mood for adventure-- or you hate the past with the vehemence that rivals the burning of a thousand red giants-- then I guess you could try to get all the time stones, which are the chaos emeralds if you took out the word “chaos” and replaced it with “time”. A la Sonic 1, collect 50 rings and then try not to get hit until you reach the end of the level, where a giant ring will be waiting for you. Once you enter, you’re in the Special Stage.

In the special stage, you fight off UFOs-- no, don’t ask why, I couldn’t tell you why-- until all of them are gone, and then you get a Time Stone. Also you’re timed. Good luck! It’s not really all that hard, but you can’t play the Time Attack version of this level until you beat all the other levels (in Time Attack Mode) under a certain time limit.

If you’re super cool and also in the mood for adventure, you can try getting all the good futures, and trust me, it is a dickens of an achievement to do so. So much so that I had to use the word “dickens”. Here’s the how-to on becoming an awesome Sonic CD player:

1) Go to the past.

2) Find Robotnik’s mechanizing machine, AKA the UFO looking thing.

3) Destroy it.

4) ???

5) PROFIT

In every level, the first two zones have these machines in them that create badniks (but not while you’re watching) from flower seeds. They look something like...

Except, you know, not 3D.

Destroying them gets rid of every badnik in the zone-- past, present and future-- so... you know, get on that. More importantly, if you destroy each of these in every level, you will always get the good future and you will get a good ending to the game. But of course this is like the hardest thing to do.

BUT IF YOU’RE SO COOL YOU DON’T EVEN CONSIDER THIS A CHALLENGE and you’re in the mood for adventure, then why not try to destroy all of the Metal Sonic holograms? They’re all in the past, they’re hidden throughout the first two zones of every level (except Metallic Madness, the last level) and if you happen to destroy them all, the game will give you a bonus.

But c'mon. You'd stop Metal Sonic from crushing a poor Flicky, wouldn't you?

I guess there’s only one other thing to talk about. Metal Sonic.

No, not that one.

Yeah, so... about Metal Sonic. He’s introduced, along with one Amy Rose, in this game as the character who shows up, kidnaps Amy, and then totally vammooses for three more levels, because he’s just that awesome. He’s the boss battle for the fifth level, Stardust Speedway, and despite the fact that this game is old and there are plenty of racing games that are faster than this race, this race just FEELS fast. Maybe it’s the fact that Robotnik is destroying the ground behind you. Maybe it’s the fact that Metal Sonic can blast his way through spikes. Maybe it’s just the feel of Stardust Speedway. Sonic Generations has a Stardust Speedway level that can’t hold a candle to this, the original is just... way, way better. Metal Sonic really is an awesome enemy, and your first (and last) battle with this version of Metal Sonic is pretty intense.

Metal Sonic would’ve disappeared into obscurity had it not been for Sonic Heroes. He appeared in a bunch of games that are pretty inconsequential as far as like... boss battles and what not are concerned, like Sonic R (he drove a car) or Sonic the Fighters (I believe he’s the last match you have to do, but he’s not really a boss battle). His major comeback in Sonic Heroes probably fueled his return in Sonic Rivals, but now I’m rambling. Suffice it to say that a lot of awesome things came out of Sonic CD and Metal Sonic nearly tops the list.

So there’s Sonic CD for you. Dunno why you’re still reading this when you could be out getting Sonic Gems Collection so you can play it. It’s awesome! And since I know you just couldn’t get enough of Metal Sonic in this review, I think I’ll have to mention one of his other forms for my next review... let’s make it... Knuckles Chaotix, where we go head to head with the famous Metal Sonic Kai!

Donald Duck in Maui Mallard/Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow

Let’s talk about the 90’s. Specifically 1991-94. Why? Because Darkwing Duck was on, that’s why.

And you know we're gonna get dangerous.

For you unfortunate souls who weren’t privy to Darkwing Duck, he bares similarities to this one guy based on a bat that no one’s heard of. Pretty sure they called him Batman.

Wait... who is this again?

Also, Duck Tales finished up in 1994. You remember Duck Tales, right? Started in the late 80’s, about some ducks on adventures all of whom are nephews of Donald Duck? And apparently Scrooge McDuck exists-- I know, I thought he was just a Christmas thing too-- and goes swimming in gold coins even though coins don’t work like water does?

Scrooge McDuck might also be a leprechaun, seeing as he NEVER spends his gold.

My point is that when the 90’s started Disney was doing a lot of stuff with ducks, which is weird if you think about it and weird if you don’t think about it, too. But you can understand why Darkwing Duck got a spinoff game for NES in 1992, right? Or why Duck Tales got a game in 1989 for NES? They were both relatively big Disney shows, so it makes a little sense why they might’ve gotten games.

So I guess while Disney was riding on it’s duck high-- and I never imagined that could even be a sentence, really-- they decided to make a ninja duck, because I suppose we were all just way into ducks at that time and there were no other interesting ducks to--

Oh, except for like, everyone in this picture, right,

So Disney created Maui Mallard (in North America). Technically, Maui Mallard is actually Donald Duck, except Disney seems to want all children to be stupid or braindead and so they consistently tell them things that aren’t true, otherwise they might’ve ditched the idea of making Maui Mallard an exact clone of Donald. (Male mallards have green heads and females are the same color from head to... butt. Also Pocahontas didn’t fall in love with John Smith. Thanks, Disney.) So in this game, I guess you could consider Donald/Maui a female.

Picture: Donald Duck

Despite our gender confused lead, Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow is probably one of my favorite retro Disney games but as it turned out it wasn’t really all that popular. This is surprising, because it’s actually a really interesting game.

Maui Mallard is a detective duck, because alliteration is awesome. Also, it gives him a reason to be wandering around in a haunted mansion. Actually, the reason he’s wandering around in the mansion is because he’s investigating the theft of the idol of a god, Shabuhm Shabuhm, from this tropical island he’s visiting. Because the island apparently was crafted by the same people that make all the rooms in every Indiana Jones movie’s secret sanctuaries, the theft of the idol starts the time ticking before the island explodes.

"OH GOD WHY DID WE HOOK UP NUKES TO THAT THING AND THEN HAVE NO ONE GUARD IT; WE WERE ASKING FOR THIS"

Maui figures he’ll look for it and heads to the mansion, which is where he’s told the idol is held, to look for clues. But it turns out the natives were just kidding and they throw him into a volcano to appease their god.

But it’s okay, because Maui survives! So the natives are still unsure about trusting the guy they very nearly barbequed for trying to help them, so they make him take a test of duckhood, which he passes. I mean, he survived a volcano, so tests are nothing! After that awesomeness, and presumably tons of high fives, they give him the powers of a ninja. By the way I just ruined the first two levels of the game. Spoilers!

When Maui Mallard becomes a Ninja, he’s called Cold Shadow, and can I just say that Cold Shadow is the most hilarious ninja to ever be? No, seriously. Look at him.

No, no, sweetie, the bandana goes on your head.

I’d show you Maui Mallard, but if you imagine Donald Duck in a Hawaiian shirt, you’ve pretty much got Maui Mallard. Oh yeah, and he has a gun. Right, that was important.

It's actually a lot like this one.

This is Disney, so shooting things with actual bullets has to be followed with birds playing in water happily or a song about how the opposing side is full of savages who aren’t like you and me which means they must be evil. So this gun shoots beetles, and apparently Maui Mallard lives in a world where beetles fart electricity and fire. Actually that’s pretty awesome.

I kind of explained the story and stuff, so let’s look at the actual game this time, alright? Firstly, this is a game about ducks, so, a la Howard the Duck, it’s more or less an excuse to stick ducks in places where ducks don’t belong. Man, that’s a terrible sentence. What I mean to say is that ducks are everywhere. You could make a game out of it, seriously. At one point there are clouds in the game that look like ducks. There’s also a duck statue in the beginning of the game, ducks carved into wood, creepy duck butlers who wander around, presumably waiting to bite your fingers clean off-- ducks are everywhere, all the time.

There's only three ducks in this shot if you don't count the life counter duck.

Speaking of slowly descending into madness, you have to pick up gold, rings, and an assortment of gems and jewels called Luau Loot. In the beginning of each level, the game will tell you how much you need to pick up in each level (usually in percentage form). I can’t tell you what happens if you pick up all of the items, but if you pick up at LEAST the amount shown in the beginning you get sent to a special stage. Of course, for that to even happen, you’re going to have to finish the level, which means that you have to beat the boss.

Why yes, that is a spider duck made of bones and a chandelier, how did you guess?

Levels are separated into stages, and each stage has a percentage of the Luau Loot that you’re supposed to pick up. It’s not really all that hard to get the right amount in the beginning levels, but as you move on it gets harder and harder, only because this is a Disney game, “hard” is relative. If you’ve played literally ANY other Disney game, I assure you that this isn’t that hard for you, provided that you understand that up does not equal down and that left is not the same as right.

Here, use this to practice.

Special stages are just you, slingshoting your way into heaven. So yeah, no big whoop or anything. The special stages aren’t really hard, but they are weird. After your Luau Loot is tallied up, you pretty much land on a giant stage with weird looking clouds and you throw Maui up as high as you can into the sky while also trying to set off fireworks. No, I don’t know what the purpose of this is, but if you beat it you get a password so you can start the game from the second level and not have to play through the first level (remember, this was before auto-save technology. And save points). All I know is that I’ve never shot off enough fireworks. When I was a kid, I didn’t even know there were special stages. This coming from a child who played so much Sonic that she hummed the music in order for all three games in the middle of class... really. That’s just sad.

The fireworks are on top of the suns and moons and the number of fireworks you need is in the lower left hand corner.

The clouds are platforms and the stars are what you use to fire yourself into the sky. And you're timed. So... yeah, that too.

What sets this game apart from most other Disney games, at the time is that this one is definitely what someone can actually call hard for that time period. All of you jaded kids nowadays who’ve played games like Kingdom Hearts or Epic Mickey might be thinking, “Disney makes hard games, we’ve played them,” but you have to understand that Disney back in the day made some pretty simple games... for example, they created World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, which is difficult for about three minutes. What I’m saying here is, Disney made games for children and depending on your age around the time that these particular games came out, you might not find them all that difficult. This is not saying they made bad games, they were just... simple.

But that’s why this game in particular is so odd, because not only was it hard when I was a kid, it’s still kind of hard now. When I was small, it took me AGES to get out of the second level-- I don’t remember ever even seeing the third level and just so you know, I could actually get to the end of Battletoads, so it’s not because I sucked at games (even though I kind of did)-- and even now, as an adult-maybe-person, I still have difficulty getting out of the second level. Whereas I can beat World of Illusion in about twenty minutes if I take a break from the game to do something more difficult to keep my brain from melting out of my ears.

Level one? Oh, okay. Time for a break.

Part of the reason why the game is difficult is the good old switcheroo. In this game, you play as both the detective, Maui Mallard, and the ninja, Cold Shadow, as I’ve already said. The first level is only playing as Maui Mallard, as he has not yet been thrown into a volcano or given a test of duckhood. The second level takes place mostly as Cold Shadow, and he handles, at first, like a concrete truck in a NASCAR race. He’s much harder to use than Maui Mallard, and some enemies aren’t even affected by Maui’s gun, so if you really have difficulty with Shadow, I have some news for you-- there are levels where Maui is absolutely ineffective. ENJOY THAT.

But first, you have to change into Cold Shadow.

I LOVE IT.

Shadow’s weapon is a staff, which he uses to hang from the ceiling and other ninja-y behavior like that. You can switch between him and Maui at any time, but usually you don’t need to. There’s really not much to talk about gameplay-wise with Shadow, but I will say that the jump mechanics will make this a lot harder now than it was with Maui, unfortunately.

But don’t take my word for it, because I probably don’t know anything. Go try out Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow and tell me what you think!