Felix the Cat (1992)

Beat on normal speed. This was a fairly simple and easy platformer with much in common with the super Mario games. No jumping on enemies though. Instead you used a short ranged punch. Instead of having separate power ups, coins spawned the 1 and only powerup in the game, which upgraded your weapon. The punch became magic stars that hit in all directions at short range, then a car that fired horizontal mid range shots, and finally a tank that lobbed long range shots in an arc. The tank was the best of course but the weaker forms could still be better for hitting certain angles, so it was not too much of a penalty to take a hit and be reverted to the previous form. The forms also had time limits so I had to be on the look out for milk and hearts to keep them fueled up. There were also flying, water and underwater stages that had entire new sets of forms. Of these I found the surface water stages the most difficult to control and fight. I barely kept the 2nd form dolphin so did not see if there was a 3rd form. Sky had punch, balloon with down arcing discs, then plane with straight shot. The underwater turtle and submarine both had straight shots. There was also a mechanic where certain tougher enemies could only be hurt by the stronger forms. The only real difficulty I had was running out of time during 1 flying boss fight, but that was easily corrected by being more aggressive. Near the end was a single spaceship stage, which was difficult because losing the ship meant falling to your death. This was the only part where I had to save state scum to make sure I got enough fuel to make it through. All of the bosses were extremely easy. I did not like how the "story" was presented, with the villain calling Felix to say nothing of worth. Why does he return home to answer the phone in between stages? Overall this was a decent game that only stood out due to the wacky forms that kinda made it play more like a shoot em up.

7.0/10