Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk (Amiga) Playthrough/Some adventures of an already rather forgotten egg
2Dizzy: Prince of Yolkfolk (1991) from Big Red Software is the sixth installment of the once legendary series of games originally created by the Oliver twins. The series is definitely one of the iconic and very well-known ones of the late 1980s, when it celebrated its greatest successes and was rapidly gaining popularity. However, Prince of Yolkfolk is the first installment to be outsourced to an outside studio, as is evident from the rest of the games in the series, but more on that later.
The game tells the story of Dizzi, whose life path, as usual, has led him into trouble, and our task will be to help him solve those unpleasant inconveniences. That is, as usual, rescuing his beloved Daisy and baking a cherry pie for Grand Dizzy. Yesssssss ...... this whole game is actually based on an unfortunate trip to the forest to get cherries for the cake :P during which Daisy falls into a typically “Fairy Tale” coma and our task will be to wake her up. In general, the whole series is heavily infused with motifs from fairy tales and legends, from, for example :Sleeping Beauty or The Frog King.
Gameplay-wise, it's a typical single-screen platformer, which I would personally christen as such a mix of platform game and point-and-click. Why so ? Because our main interaction with the game world besides walking and jumping will be to pick up and use objects in the right places to move further in the storyline. The entire gameplay is based on getting from point a to b in one piece and solving puzzles, thanks to previously acquired items. Dizzy can only carry a maximum of 3 items, which means that more than once we will have to backtrack to pick up items left behind in order to complete the game. Which is basically you can say the main mechanic of the game from the very beginning. Exploring the map and judiciously carrying and placing in strategic places the items needed to complete the next puzzle.
Graphically it is average at best here. The sprites and backgrounds are decent but the backgrounds are unfortunately static and boring. Simply nothing extraordinary. Music, although the entire soundtrack consists of one long track, you have to admit that it is phenomenal. The track from beginning to end is very diverse, once slow once dynamic, sometimes majestic and sometimes even gloomy. It's hard for me to describe it as I'm no music expert, but the track climbs perfectly into a mythical land full of adventure, uncertainty and also danger.
The series has always been known for its exorbitant level of difficulty....... but this time is different. The outside studio, however, failed to perfectly recreate the spirit of previous games created by the Oliver twins. The game is very simple compared to previous and subsequent parts and mainly due to the fact that there are virtually no enemies and terrain traps are not a challenge. There are not many places where you can lose your life, in fact the only one that comes to mind is the boat crossing . What's hard to understand when Dizzy has a life bar........ there are a couple of elements where this bar can obviously decrease such as walking into a Troll or on sharp bushes blocking the entrance to the castle. And that would be pretty much it :P Dizzy Prince of Yolkfolk seems to have been released quickly, as if it had not been completed. This is inferred by the fact that several items have no use here, and the titles describing a particular screen indicate that there was a plan to use a particular item in those places, such as the flying carpet and the castle roof, which is described as “First Landing!”
Definitely a weak game by Dizzy's standards, especially since in the same year was released, for me, his best installment and also (in my opinion) the most difficult..... or Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy. Come to think of it as a weak or at best average game, it still has that nostalgic place in my heart full of pleasant memories :) This Dizzy proves that even a weak game in the series can defend itself with its unconventional approach to gameplay, against others focused mainly on jumping on heads :D
Average but worthy of recommendation.
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"Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"