Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude! (Genesis) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
270A playthrough of Sega's 1992 license-based platformer for the Sega Genesis, Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude!
It seems to be a little known fact that Greendog wasn't an original character created by Sega. He was, in fact, a product of the imagination of Ric Green, and was the star of a board game, "Surf Trip," that saw some local success in southern California when it went on sale in 1988. In reading up on it, I found a 1989 article from the LA Times about it and the ways they were planning to license it out, if your interest is at all piqued: http://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-21-fi-1094-story.html
Apparently someone at Sega of Japan saw some potential in the IP and bought the rights, and Sega then dropped it in the laps of Sega Technical Institute expecting a quick turnaround. Since they were apparently interested in investing as little in the project as possible, Sega also informed the team that the game was going to ship on a 512K ROM.
Given all of those handicaps before development had even begun, it's surprising that Greendog turned out as well as it did. It got decent reviews from magazines when it was released, and it sold well enough to justify the release of a Game Gear port the following year.
At its heart, Greendog is a simple, 8-bit style platformer. You play as Greendog, who wipes out on some totally gnarly wave and finds himself stranded on a beach. A woman in a bikini informs him that his necklace is cursed, and that it will drive any living thing mad that Greendog gets close to while wearing it (besides Bambi, the bikini woman, I guess?). To be able to remove it and return to his surfing, Greendog has to search out six pieces of an ancient artifact.
Greendog's weapon is a boomeranging Frisbee that can be tossed at fish, birds, psycho tourists, or whatever else might be seeking to put an early end to the surfer's quest, but he can grab some power-ups to help out, like Frisbee power-ups and invincibility hats. He can also find food for points, though I'm not convinced that it is wise to eat a donut coughed up by a pelican or McDonald's fries that are flying out of ancient Aztec totems.
Most of the game involves walking left-to-right, but he occasionally will grab rollerskates or a skateboard to zip through areas littered with spikes, as well as jump into on a gyrocopter when its time to move onto a new location.
The big complaint I've seen about Greendog is that the controls are unresponsive. I never found that to be the case, but you do have to be careful to make sure that Greendog is ready to jump when you need him to - if he's in the middle of an animation for a different move, the jump won't work, which can be frustrating until you get used to it since there are plenty of pits that you'll want to avoid falling into. But like I said, once you've gotten acclimated to the feel of the game, this'll rarely pose a problem.
The action tends to be pretty laid back and fairly easy, and I thought that its flow was really nicely supported by the graphics and sound. The tropical backdrops look great - they're vivid and detailed without being garish or overly-dithered, and Greendog's sprite is cool, even if it doesn't really fit with the style of anything else in the game.
My favorite aspect of Greendog, though, has to be the soundtrack. Despite sounding like it was produced with Gems, it nails the Carribbean, calypso vibe with catchy beats and rhythms far more capably than the Genesis's The Little Mermaid did.
Overall, I wouldn't say that I loved Greendog, but I did like it. It sets its mood well, and its a nice, chill game to kick back with if you want something that's both simple and entertaining.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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