paleface [sys=GB; cat=Platformer; reg=NA] |
| | It appears that Capcom's North American release of this game was a bit sketchy: the box and cart sticker call themselves "Snow Brothers," which apparently matches the name of the Japanese version, but the actual ugly, in-game title screen says "Snow Bros. Jr." A very cool (haha! er) single-screen platformer here. The "Brothers" part has gone by the wayside, no link-play here, but one brother at least can go through level after level of screen-filling platform goodness, pelting goons with wads of snow until they're turned in to a giant snowball, then giving the snowball a shove and picking up the powerups released when it goes smashing through the remaining goons. The real trick is to snowball the goon at the top of the screen, then give him a shove in such a way that he rebounds down the screen, running over all the remaining goons--not only do you get a powerup from each goon run over, you also get a massive shower of giant money from heaven, which adds up to huge points, if you grab it. Powerups let you freeze things faster, extend your throwing range, and so forth. Every now and then you get to a boss stage where generally speaking you freeze little guys into balls and shove them into the boss until he keels over. Nice and simple. The music and sound here are pretty good, and the characters all look rather unique. They don't animate all that well, however, except maybe when your snowman does his somersault in mid-jump, and in fact the framerate as a whole feels really sluggish throughout the game. It's still playable but it feels like more effort than it should be just to move around. Still, the gameplay itself is dead solid. I don't think there's a save or password system at all, but you can always write your high score or stage down and try to beat it the next time, I suppose. |
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