| | I was thinking about getting this for my brother for X-Mas, since he has a SNES, but after giving it some plays, decided against it. I think the game would have frustrated him, and he would have ended up hating me. Hey, there's a GBA version now, too! Eh, I don't think I'll get it for myself, though.
Kid Clown runs along an isometric, downward-sloping diagonal path, trying to get to the end of the course while collecting a certain number of cards on the way. If he misses any of the cards, he has to run the course again--but at least he retains the cards he got on previous run-throughs. Along the way, silly-looking bad guys try to trip him, blow him up, and otherwise slow him down or do damage to him. He's got a pretty hefty health meter, but after enough damage, it's game over. On the other hand, if you get all the cards and survive to the end of the course, it's on to the next, tougher course.
The graphics are very well animated, with the Kid himself having many surprising and amusing animations as he makes his tortured way past a multitude of life-threatening obstacles.
But the game is a little lacking in the gameplay department. For one thing, you can't tell where the cards are. You come across a lot of floating balloons along the course, and you have to jump at just the right time to catch them before you've passed them by. If a trap hits you at the wrong time, it can force you past the balloon, and then you'll have to get to the end of the course and start it over again if you want (or need) to get that balloon that you missed. Some of the balloons contain the cards you need, but most of them either contain nothing, or a dangerous trap that does damage to you--and there's no way to tell aside from getting each balloon and then memorizing which ones are the good ones and which ones are the bad ones. This is not so fun.
Also, the Kid controls weird. I felt like I had to hold down on the d-pad just to keep him moving along the diagonal track; not sure if that was absolutely necessary, but it felt like it was, and this was annoying. He's sluggish to maneuver on the track, so dodging obstacles and traps is a little harder than it should be. And finally, the odd viewing angle makes it difficult to tell exactly where the balloons are, and when you should jump--oh, and I don't even want to think about the problems with air control while jumping in this weird diagonal fashion. |
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