✰ GR Creative Highlight: 161 Super Nintendo Reviews, Index on first page

I wanted to end the year with something a bit festive but as my free time shrinks I think Wrestlemania might end up the last pre Christmas video game video of mine , I really need to learn to plan better , I should have made something fitting at the start of the month and held it back to post it nowish

I decided I needed to do one last review as a Christmas special... it was going to be a SNES Review but it ended up being a Megadrive review

My 9th Megadrive/Genesis Review World of Illusion my Christmas Review special.. I really intended my Christmas special to be a SNES game but this just had to be done.. I would really appreciate people watching it as it is a very deeply personal Video and is in honour of my mum.

SNES Review 162 Zool




So here we have Zool a game which was originally intended as a rival to Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog. The games designer George Allen came up with the idea of Zool as despite his previous game Switchblade 2 being a critical success one area he did receive complaints over was the fact that some people felt that the game had a lack of enemies. The game might have started off as the Amiga;s answer to sonic but it soon went multiplatform turning up on the Atari ST, Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES, Master System, Sega Game Gear, and PC. Obviously as this is part of my SNES Review Series the SNES version is the one I am going to be reviewing here.

Most computer ports are pretty close to the original Amiga version but the Megadrive and SNES ports both feature different levels which are structured differently, as well as different background graphics, and unique bosses both of these ports feature the soundtrack of the Amiga original, remixed to make the best of both console's unique sound systems. So While this does suffer from what I would call Amiga SNES Conversion syndrome where by a much cheaper Amiga game is ported to a cart and sold at full price with no real work going into it at least some effort seems to have gone in to making the most of the Super Nintendo and its abilities here instead of just trying to slap a disc on a cart and asking everyone to pay a pretty price for it.

OK so lets get down to the game its self well I cant help but feel that Zool does not feel in the least bit fresh at all, in fact it feels like a compendium of knock off ideas wrapped in a chuppah chups lolly wrapper. The main thing this game rips off is the aforementioned sonic the hedgehog, fast moving protagonist who the developers felt personified cool check, cuteness and bright things level dialled up to 11 check, super fast movement check. The main issue is that from my perspective at least the game copies some key ideas while totally missing the point, for example you might zip quickly forwards but your characters to close to the front of the screen by the time you have seen something you have already passed through it, sure you can spin about and fire but you soon find yourself spinning and firing almost constantly in the hope that you will hit something that will be in your way before you even pressed the button that fired the shot that hit it. Sonic has some of this covered by the fact that when hit you drop your rings instead of dying and can keep picking them up again to ward of the grim reaper, in Zool you have a life bar which can run down far faster than you'd imagine as stuff repeatedly slams into you. The game has lots of levels and some pretty long ones at that and its one of those games that expects you to finish the whole thing with no battery backup or passwords although in the modern day and age I guess this is an issue that you can solve with the right hardware such as emulation and save states but this doesn't help if your looking to experience the actual cartridge on actual original hardware.

The best thing about Zool is definitely the graphics which I feel hold up rather well when compared to other games in the SNES library. You have lots of Bright colours and a steady frame rate, how much you actually enjoy them though is going to depend on how much your in to cuteness if you want to see a world full of lollipops and chocolate eggs and candy canes then this is going to be right up your alley as there all there in there bright glory. The only terrifying thing your going to see here are a bunch of terrifying eyebrows pasted on to cute little slimes and bees. For me though the graphics are in no way matched by the sound, you have repetitive grungy music matched with overly loud repetitive sound effects it just lacks the charm of games like Mario and sonic which have carefully crafted level music which you will find yourself humming weeks later paired with satisfying little soundbites which bring life to the worlds in which they exist.

The most important part of a game is not the graphics or the sound though, most of what makes a game good or bad rests firmly on the controls which in this case I definitely think disappoint, they just feel a bit slippy and slidy you don't feel like you have the kind of tight control which make games like Mario and the 2D Sonic games the classics they are.

I cant say that this is a truly bad game its more of one of those games which is a disappointment, there was potential there but it never quiet lived up to it, sure it was worth its cost on the Amiga where it came on a floppy disc but in the world of 40pound carts it was never going to be able to stand head to head with the likes or Mario

If you feel like you really need to play Zool on your snes and don't want to use an everdrive or anything like that then a real cart will cost you about 12quid online with boxed copies being closer to 30pounds but I really do think that even if you have got all the Sonic and Mario games you could possibly want in your retro game collection then your money would be much better spent elsewhere maybe look at some of the more recent retro styled platformers which have been released instead of digging through the past for semi trash hoping it will hit the spot

I'd not pay 12p for Zool, let alone £12

I enjoyed that kerr, thanks for reviewing my suggestion!

You make a good point about the character screen position vs movement speed and how if you're fast moving you want to place the character further left to give the player more reaction time.

I really liked the Zool books when I was little which is why I have a soft spot for Zool, but the game really isn't great. I do think it's notable though for the insanely blatant chupa chups branding.

Fun fact about chupa chups is that their logo was designed by Salvador Dali... which arguably means because the logo appears in this game, this is the closest you will ever get to playing a videogame with art by Salvador Dali

OrangeRKN wrote:I enjoyed that kerr, thanks for reviewing my suggestion!

You make a good point about the character screen position vs movement speed and how if you're fast moving you want to place the character further left to give the player more reaction time.

I really liked the Zool books when I was little which is why I have a soft spot for Zool, but the game really isn't great. I do think it's notable though for the insanely blatant chupa chups branding.

Fun fact about chupa chups is that their logo was designed by Salvador Dali... which arguably means because the logo appears in this game, this is the closest you will ever get to playing a videogame with art by Salvador Dali

I am a very very big fan of the lolly's I had loads of them as a kid.. Zool is one of those games that I feel with a bit of alteration it could be a lot better there's so many games like that were I think make a few simple changes and you'd up them like 20percent in reviews, which wouldnt be a bad idea for a post thread