Whomp 'Em Review by: endings - 5.9/10
Weak-sauce Mega Man wannabeWhomp 'Em is a fairly mediocre game that take a page from Capcom's Mega Man series - in that you choose stages and fight bosses that give you techniques to use in later stages. With the popularity of the blue bomber's games, I'll make a few comparisons here of Mega Man since Whomp 'Em is emulating some its style. There's a reason this game faded in obscurity, and its not just because its a port of a different game with some creative graphic touches added.
Its a platformer, with a fair mix of vertical platforming thrown in. Your main weapon is a spear, and it can be (sometimes) upgraded to make it strike further, you get no ranged weapon for this game. Its a sad fact, and one you have to live with. Enemies you kill drop small power-ups that can last the whole stage or for a limited time (a helmet to reduce damage, for instance). There are also small gourds to collect, that once you reach a certain number, your life bar is increased. These can be collected the entire game, and pausing it (by pushing
select - not start) shows you how many more you have to get to raise the life count. In practice not a bad idea, but its annoying how many you need to max it out. It wouldn't be so bad if the stages were not so short, and starts to add in tedious grinding.
Whomp 'Em strengths; it controls well, the graphics are clean and bright, and some stages look quite nice. The hero is also an unusual and creative choice. However, the game has a number of flaws; it suffers from some really lame music, weak story, some fairly tepid level design and overall lackluster special abilities.
Graphics: 8
This game was released later in the NES life, so the pixels are clean and objects are well defined. Some stages have memorable backgrounds, which range from on theme for the stage to downright weird (an ice stage with.. giant eyeballs?). The enemy pixels are also clean and easy to spot, although with this game being retouched - its hard to figure out why some things like pink flying elephants are in a game about the American west. I wish they had changed more of the enemies to not feel so random, but good job overall here!
Sound: 3
Ohh man. I'm assuming the sound was also retouched for this game, and it feels half-done. A forest stage has a crude, 4-second loop for its stage music, and I couldn't go 3 minutes with that. The sound effects are not so hot either. Considering its trying to resemble the blue bomber's games, it has nothing on Capcom's music team. This music sucks.
Addictiveness: 5
Its not bad. The option of letting you pick your stage adds replay value, as does seeing the bosses and beating them. I found the last stage to be a long chore, which is quite out of place considering the other stages before it had managed their time and stage themes well. The biggest issue I see to this is, you don't want to die. This is not a game with extra lives. If you die, you can restart the stage from the beginning - even if you made it to the boss. Its pretty harsh, but fortunately, most bosses and stages aren't too bad.
Story: 4
So your hero's name is Soaring Eagle, and apparently he wants to prove himself a might warrior and something to do with totems. The story isn't well thought out, you have no idea who the last boss is, and you don't see any natives or cowboys or anything else relevant to the shaky plot structure cobbled together. Its not horrible, but it definitely feels rushed.
Depth: 3
Ah, it has the appearance of some depth, but really there's not much here. For starters, you can use the special powers as much as you want! No limit! This might sound cool, but if you're thinking of a game where each boss is weak to another special attack, think again.
The most disappointing for me, is the powers you can from the enemy bosses. They are often not so literal, so a strange dragon boss can give you a floating cloud to ride temporarily. In all you get a grand total of two offensive-based moves, and the rest are seldom-used secondary powers that can add to the platforming. A skill to break blocks for optional paths/power-ups (not used too often, but hey), throwing a spear into a wall to jump off it. Riding a cloud.. which pretty much is a better form of the spear.. etc. Its like playing Mega Man 2, and instead of getting Quick Boomerang or Metal Blade - all you can get are the wall-crawling Item 3 and the Rush-coil jump. It doesn't do much to inspire or make you feel Soaring Eagle is becoming a better warrior. You do finally get fierce ranged attack right before embarking on the last quest, but to use it costs one of your life hearts, so its a sparingly used weapon at best.
The gourd collecting is one feature that seems to grow with you (the more you play, the longer your life will grow), but it just comes across as tedious as you can play the whole game normally and maybe get about halfway full on hearts. This wouldn't be so bad but the last stage is a beast, and the difficulty ramps up so you'll want those hearts.
The platforming part themselves, are pretty shallow. There are often no interesting things in the environment that add any freshness to the stages, other than a background change and the enemies, it all feels like the same thing. Some painful storm clouds/lava and running water over ice are the only times I remember a stage feeling different than the others.
Difficulty: 6
This game is pretty pedestrian, and isn't too tough, once you get into the mindset you can't make many mistakes or you'll repeat the whole stage over. The bosses sometimes match their assigned area, but all have simple patterns making them fairly easy to beat. The last stage however, is super long and makes the most of you using your skills acquired through the game. You had better hope you have a magic potion that restores your life, because its way tougher than the rest of the game.
Whomp 'Em is not a bad game, but I can't see this as anything to fondly remember. Mega Man was here first, and he did it better. Moving on.
Graphics
8 Sound
3 Addictive
5 Depth
3 Story
4 Difficulty
6
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