So I actually first played this game 20 years ago in February, around the same time that the space station Mir came down to earth but at least it didn't up like the galaxy space station where it ended up polluting the ocean.



Gameplay and Story: This game is considered part of the Super Solver franchise however this time the Master of Mischief is innocent of all charges this time, a space station had fell to Earth (it seemed no one was on board at the time) and it may have had something to do with one of the objects the scientists found while on the space station, and the object depends on which level you are at more on that later. Since the station hit the Pacific Ocean and it threatens the world's sea life, and so the government launches Operation Neptune, a minisub that is set to collect pieces of the space station and data canisters containing entries from the scientists on board the space station, and we fire (hopefully non-toxic) Ink pellets at the sea life that is in our way, if we touch them we lose some oxygen, but don't worry there's a nice little dolphin name Nemo (sorry about that I was watching way too much Rescue Heroes at the time I played this game) Zoom however he does not appear in the 3rd sector of the Fossil Trench zone because it's "too deep" for him to reach us.

Graphics: Well they're not really 2D animated, but the areas of the game are really nice to look at, even some of the...okay at least one piece of sea life is nice to look at the Angelfish in Dragon Reef (unless you are playing expert mode).

Soundtrack: So aside from the stuff you would hear in the opening screen there are about 6 different tracks, and then they alternate with every zone. But they all fit theming, but it loses a point because they only did 6 tracks...oh wait I forgot about the final sector track, it is like a fast urgency thing.

Addictive: it was addictive enough for me to want to finish the game. I will admit I had problems going forward in the game initially because I had no idea there was a hidden area that you could go through I thought there was no entryway at first that's why I had been stuck at the second sector of Fossil Trench.

Depth: 5x3 that's 5 zones with three sectors though technically there is a final sector when we get to Hammerhead yeah the Hammerhead sector is where we get to the heavy duty things we have to be concerned about like sharks, and erupting volcanoes, the biggest pests are probably the fish that can shoot stuff at you life the stingray and the Octopus.

Difficulty: So this is a math related game, and in between collecting these data canisters and capsules you have to solve a math problem either coming from the Mother ship of the sub's onboard computer, and you solve a number patterns puzzle when you collect a data canister, the leveling changes once you get to Limestone ridge, but you can easily change that back. Now I did bring up that the object you find in the final sector would depend on which difficulty mode you are on, if you are on Voyager mode you have to recover Substance X which is a pot of toxic chemicals and you have to get past some mutated pufferfish, and then make your way back up again the ink pellets have no effect on the pufferfish(I would hate to have seen what they would have done with the Angelfish in Dragon Reef). In Expert mode oy....it's actually bigger than Voyager mode and we deal with Sharks, the ink pellets only work on them for a second and it is hell to maneuver you have to time everything right, because on either version of the sector, if you touch these mutated things once you have to start over at the beginning of the sector, well at least in Expert Mode once you've collected Artifact X the mothership gets you themselves.

Post Review Follow-up: I know what you are thinking, no this is not a rip off of Treasure Cove, it is kind of similar where we shoot stuff but we shoot bubbles at starfish in that game and locate gems, here we just collect capsules and canisters and save the ocean not a mystical land in the treasure, I will do treasure cove one day and hopefully by the time I have landed on it, wait no I won't I have obtained a copy of the remastered version though (because I guess they made a ton of money from the Cluefinders game that they remastered several games....uh you know what I'll get to the acquirements when I get to a Mecc game).


This concludes my review, tomorrow is Sunday and we all know what that means...SUMMER GAMING MAME-ories I will be reviewing the first TMNT Coin-op game (sorry but I never played Turtles in Time) the best part is I pre-wrote the review for this game so I won't have to keep going back and playing in between.