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Super Nintendo--Ardy Lightfoot Review |
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Ardy Lightfoot is an action platformer in a cartoon adventure style. You play Ardy Lightfoot some sort of animal in his quest for some magical jewels which are being stolen by bad animals who work for a toad. You also have a girl friend who gets kidnapped along the quest and its up to you to rescue her. The game is told through cut-scenes and for some reason, no words at all, just gestures and expression bubbles. Gameplay: 5/10 The gameplay itself is much like other action platform games. You have the ability to jump, run, pick up or push certain things such as boulders and bombs. You also have a blue creature along with you called Pec who is your sidekick and which can eat enemies up when thrown. To hurt enemies if you're missing Pec, as it might happen, you'll have to press jump while in the air and bounce on enemies but why exactly do you have to press jump again to kill enemies is beyond me. Isn't it obvious you want to kill enemies when you're dropping down? You can also double jump by pressing jump and holding it while on the ground. This 'charges' your jump allowing you to jump higher but you can't move probably when you're charged up. Pec also has the ability to change when you collect power-ups. For example, he can inflate and allow you to ride him. Finally, you have a special hiding ability where if you hold up long enough Ardy will take out some sort of wrap and become part of the environment. So far so good but then troubles creep up. First off, getting hit by enemies is a really bad thing. Not only do you lose Pec but you then have to rely on your tail bounce attack which is very troublesome and weird to control. It's not also easy to attack enemies either like that especially if you can't quite see where they are. The special hiding move is somewhat difficult to execute as well because of the time it takes. There isn't anything particularly wrong otherwise with the character but he isn't particularly exciting either. Pec should have probably been put to more use because he only seems to have two transformations. If Pec had a larger variety of ability to say protect Ardy for a limited time or execute a long range projectile attack then maybe it would have been a much better game. Graphics: 3/5 The graphics are rather good, cartoonish and well animated but not very exciting otherwise. Sound and Music: 2.5/5 The sound and music are okay but not very exciting either. Game design: 1.5/5 In actual fact, there are some fairly interesting levels in the game and not just because they take place in different locations such as the stomach of a worm. For example, there's a boat level where you're suppose to jump from boat to boat and a mine cart level where you're in a mine cart. There are two particular examples which really stand out. The first is one of the bosses where you have to jump on buttons to hurt her while avoiding getting hit when she jumps on other buttons. The second is the mirror level in the castle where you and your reflection must avoid getting hurt. However, aside from these interesting bits there really isn't much to distinguish them from other games. The levels are fairly small, uninteresting and some of them such as the pyramid levels aren't done well at all and are frustrating rather than exciting. Longevity: 2/5 This game starts off okay and it seems okay but because it's so average becomes really boring. You'll probably not bother finishing it. For: Some interesting parts. Good graphics. Against: Boring levels. Mediocre gameplay. |
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Game: Ardy Lightfoot Genre: Action Produced by: Ascii Year: 1994 Platform: Super Nintendo Runs on: Snes9X, ZSnes Scoring Summary Gameplay: 5/10 Graphics: 3/5 Sound and Music: 2.5/5 Game design: 1.5/5 Longevity: 2/5 Total: 14/30 Rating: 47% -Reviewed by Barnabas |