James Pond (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
69🕹️ James Pond is a run and bubble platformer, where the aim is to collect items and return them to complete each level. Each section has a fishy James Bond theme, and this was a very big hit in the day, with most people having seen or played it. Lets see if we can unlock its hidden depths.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 23rd October 2018
Edited: 29th Jan 2019 - 4th Feb 2019
Narrated: 1st February 2019
Yes, we played this in round 13 of the Super League in 2018, and this is the 13th show this series. Before we played it for three weeks, I'd never gotten anywhere with this. It just seemed too hard for me, and to some extent it still is - although Robocod feels much easier.
I recorded this as my furthest try but I explored a bit further on my own. The video ends with the oil spilling Tanker level, which is quite tricky, but isnt so hard to master. If you use the helmet you can run over the top of the tanker and get some lives and bonuses for free. After that there is an ice level, with seals to collect and an ice laser to fire! This level is tough and I didnt beat it. I noted down all the locations in order to collect the second mega bonus, but I went on holiday before I managed to collect them all, and I was still short by one letter. I wrote down this info on the Lemon thread of the compo, if anyone is interested. The longplays dont use the letters, so its was uncharted territory.
I never planned to have this as a game in this series, but it was one of the '10 better games' I chose to replace some lesser ones. The lesser ones included: Bally II, Shadow Fighter AGA, Take Em Out, Shadow Warriors, Pinball Brain Damage AGA, Puzznic, Frenetic and Eliminator - although the Frenetic review should now be on the Patreon playlist. All those games will end up on that playlist if there are enough people interested, as well as a list of other games which never made it to release, from past series.
Editing this was a bit of a rush, and I only gave myself 2 weeks to turn this around. Originally this was scheduled for much later, but I wanted to move it up to this week to keep the order or releases looking interesting. I narrated 90% of the shows last autumn, so this was the first one which was narrated this year! As such, its the first new piece of narration since the Waffle film, and free from much of the anxiety of last year.
I like to include something special in the reviews so this time it was inserting all the bonus letter I found into the bonus caves, so viewers can keep up with which ones I collected. I cut out all the letters from the home screen, by painting out the background, and then cutting around each letter, and placing them in the video. It took a while (2 hours) , and as you can see, the outline around the edges is still visible - and looks naff. But the editor refused to remove that last part of the background with the transparency tool, and I didnt have time to go back and do a perfect job., especially as it took 2 days to upload it, and I only just managed to get it online in time.
Danscore:
James Pond looks like a cutsy platformer for boys and girls everywhere, and from the first level it seems to be instantly playable. But the difficulty ramps up with each scenario, and by level 4 of maybe 15 in the game, the average player is struggling to work out what to do. Some practice is needed to understand each area, and armed with the locations of health, lives, and key items, its still never an easy game, and care must be taken, as well as rushing to complete them within the time limits. Some aspects can seem annoying, like warping into baddies, or dying on something innocent like an insta-kill flower, while endlessly plodding around looking for items can seem a bit over long at times. Not being able to touch the sides of caves is also a bit punishing, especially when the yellow starfish can get stuck in the walls. I like the graphics and the playability of the game, and if the levels were slightly less full of traps and death spots, Im sure it would have its place in history secure. But fun factor can be low when you dont have the time to just hang around and learn what to do. Id rate this 7 out of 10.