Game:

Mischief Makers (1997)

Duration: 1:18:49

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Originally recorded: April 2, 2023
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Well, I pretty much expected to finish this time around... especially after giving up any delusions on collecting all of the Gold Gems to get the "full" ending. I think what I found the most surprising is that the fifth (and final) world was the shortest by far. Hell, they even counted the ending and the game's credits as stages on the map... and it still had less levels than anything that came before.

It also didn't hurt that it was mostly boss fights anyway. Granted, most of the boss fights in the final world did kick my ass pretty hard. I think my favorite of the bunch was the penultimate boss fight against the Emperor -- who turned out to be Professor Theo's brother, Leo -- while the proper final boss fight against the Beastectors' giant mech felt like a bit of a non sequitur, given how the game seemed to imply that they were under mind control. I dunno, maybe the localization was incomprehensible after all. The fights with Merco and Phoenix Gamma were probably the most annoying of the bunch, though... just given the mechanics present in both of them.

I also decided to test exactly what happens when you don't continue... and the truth is, it didn't seem to have any real negative consequences. I mean, it wastes a little more time, but your save remains intact and you get to continue with full health without paying in the 10 red gems you'd usually need to spend for that privilege. But considering that by that point in the game, I was more than willing to pay extra for more health, I didn't really exploit the game over mechanic that much in the end. Still, it's nice to know.

In the end, I'd say that I understand why Mischief Makers is considered a cult *classic*, but I also understand why it's considered a *cult* classic. It's inventive, quirky, unique and clearly has some of the same DNA as other platformers of theirs I enjoyed like Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy. But I wouldn't pay $65 for it today, let alone back in 1996... back when money had roughly twice as much spending power as it does nowadays. In fact, the $10 Nintendo used to charge for N64 games on the Wii's Virtual Console is probably in line with what I would've paid for it. But I did have fun, even if the conditions for "completing" the game were somewhat insane. Experimental games like this just didn't have much of a chance on console before the days of digital downloads.

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