Do! Run Run (1984)

Look: 8/10 Mostly just functional, and the same as the Mr. Do looks just without that extra touch that Mr. Do's Wild Ride had, but I did particularly love the "Extra Mr. Do" screen (which I was proud of even earning at all heh) (It also flashed Extra on the top of the screen, but it wasn't flashing when I managed to get the screenshot argh)

I will say it vaguely had a pre-Mario nostalgia feel to it, partly due to how they displayed elevation. It reminded me of certain Super Mario World levels. Hard to get screenshots though--the game is nonstop! The only way I could get a screenshot was by pausing the game heh, so it's darkened. But this was to show the sort of Super Mario World cave/elevated platforms vibe I'm talking about :-p Tell me this doesn't remind you of some of the Super Mario World levels heh

Also, the blue enemy with the spikes on top had a cool look to it. Reminded me of a lot of upcoming Dragon Quest and Zelda enemies. And in the end, I gotta admit, like much of this game, it grew on me. I almost wanna give it a 9 cuz of the enemy design, the familiar yet unique enough look to Mr. Do and the color schemes, and the Pac-Man/Mario vibes overall look.

Sound: 8/10 Catchy and good, definitely did a great job, and I particularly liked the Hi Score jingle. But didn't have that striking aspect I look for. Still, beyond functional, and the sound effects weren't annoying which is always nice. Well, it really is quite catchy. And the theme jingle grew on me over time (unlike most repeated jingles, which usually get annoying with time heh). Now as I type this, I still hear the motivational melody in my head heh. Kinda reminded me of some later Final Fantasy battle music :-p

Play: 9/10 At first I had no idea what was going on, and was just going to pass this one off. But because some of the Mr. Do games have been so good, I decided to push on and try to understand. Even after reading about it and watching a video it was confusing. I got the basic premise: kill all the enemies on a screen to move on... Your ball can kill them, but you have to wait for your ball to rejuvenate (not sure if it rejuvenates by how many thingies you collect, or just time... I later confirmed it seems to be by the ball-thingies and it increases in size till it's ready to be used as a projectile). (Pro tip: it can bounce off a wall and you will get it back. Plus, it was super awesome to kill an enemy with a ricochet shot, often accidentally heh). I had more fun killing them with the big roller pins heh, which I got a surprising knack of right away. It was fun seeing how many I could kill at once. Another pro tip: the letter things can't just be collected, you have to kill them to collect the bonus. I'm sure I could have gotten a higher score if I did more of the extra stuff but I figured out the basics and had fun doing it in the end. In the later levels, it became more and more clear that I needed to kill an enemy with my powered-up ball as soon as I could, and otherwise strategize my collection of the ball-thingies. Cuz once the screens became more and more crowded with enemies, you needed as many ball-thingies to replenish your power ball as possible. Plus, using the roller pins became more and more critical rather than just fun: one time I got 4 possibly even 5 enemies at once with it! (It's so fast-paced it's hard to be entirely sure heh.) Omg wow right after typing that I got 7+ enemies killed! On Scene 14 lol that roller pin finished the level when I had only killed 1 enemy with a Power Ball! Epic haha. Great addition to the game to give those serotonin boosts :-p

Feel: 9/10 Apparently this game has 99 unique levels. That's far too many. I still feel like I played a very thorough playthrough for an essentially endless arcade-style game (according to sources online, it is 99 unique level designs that repeat infinitely, with a presumption it crashes after 256). But I also noticed that, seemingly-to-me (not that I'm the best judge/gamer heh), at least by Scene 9 it was already repeat screens just with more enemies. Meh, that's always tacky, but I suppose about 8 unique level designs is good--especially with the huge variety of setups they could spice it up with. So, I decided to make my own goal: to Level 20. And because I was about 77k Score at the time I determined an "ending"/set goal, I would also have to break over 100k. In other words, either Level 20 or 100k Score--whichever came last. In the mid-10s, it got real hard and overwhelming! The roller pin became absolutely essential cuz of just how many enemies there were. I can only imagine level 80! (Well, I saw it in the video, but the video used Invincibility cheat so doesn't really show the overwhelming gameplay of it.)

Attachment: 8/10 Even though that felt like a pretty lofty goal, especially with how difficult the levels got in the mid-10s, I still felt a slight drive to keep playing! Says a lot, especially with an endless arcade-style rack-up-points type game. May return to this savestate to continue on some time heh. But I'm for sure gonna show my brothers and even though it's not very pick-up-and-playable, possibly have it up at get-togethers! Ironically, I still don't fully get everything especially the Qix-esque drawing/outlining-a-shape aspect. But all the more reason it's replayable because it was fun just as a get-to-the-next-screen-and-survive-and-kill type action game heh. I reached my goal! And truly wanted to keep playing, especially when I realized it was a whole new look to the level. So it seemed more like the Pac-Man style of "re-cycling" where every 10 levels or so it adds a look or something like that. Maybe it's just different color design but I do love that. I definitely will return to this to continue and see all the looks, designs, and color schemes!

Completion: To Scene 20 Playtime: ~1 hour