Mirai Shonen Conan for PCE CD
Review #11071
Mirai Shonen Conan
Conan the Pedestrian
Gameplay
Not much to it, I'm afraid. You've got a weak and short ranged kick or jump kick, but in most cases it's best to avoid enemies rather than kill them. They respawn anyway, so why risk it?
Controls have the triple wammy of being too fast, floaty, and momentum based, which leads to fall after fall. There are no powerups, no collectibles, no real combat, and the same foot soldiers over and over.
Level Design
I'm tempted to drop this down even further, but at least there's variety in the setting. The stages have small platforms and slopes which don't play well with the floaty controls. And the stages are tiny - most are only 30-90 seconds long with most of the time spent retrying jumps that you just barely missed. Several stages have mind-numbing multiple door puzzles. Ugh, the more I think about it the more I dislike it. But I'll leave it at 2.
Theme
This is clearly an anime, and honestly plays more like an episode than a video game. The between- and in-stage cutscenes are longer than the interactive sections. It's all in Japanese so I don't know what anyone is saying but the tropes are fairly clear.
Art Style
The cutscenes are straight-up Studio Ghibli but the in-game graphics are embarrasingly undetailed. Tiny sprites don't even have faces. they animate fine but lack much detail. The variety of backgrounds almost saves the package, but the visual language for platforms and doors is terrible.
Audio
There's only one song that gets old and only a single sound effect for your kick. It no joke sounds like the jump in the Atari 2600 version of Pitfall! What year is this?!
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