Bucky O'Hare is a little known comic book that was turned into a cartoon show back in the early 90s. Unlike the Ninja Turtles, which made this transition with tremendous success, Bucky O'Hare disappeared with little fanfare. Maybe it had to do with syndicated cartoons being phased out around this time, or other action oriented cartoons like X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series took attention away from it, but regardless, it was around long enough to get an NES game.

The game, which has great graphics and music, is pretty rare. In it, you play as Bucky O'Hare, leader of the U.A.F. (United Animals Federation) who must rescue his crew from the evil clutches of the Toad Empire. You can select what stage you want to play, and each one features different puzzles and challenges to overcome, with a boss fight to end the level. Once you beat the boss, you will get a teammate, who you can use in stages moving forward. Each teammate has different abilities that can come in handy.

This game reminds me of Battletoads and Mega Man 2. It has a certain cheapness and frustration that takes me back to Battletoads. You will die A LOT, but the good news is unlike Battletoads, you have unlimited continues. The stage select and level layouts remind me of Mega Man 2. Things like blocks appearing and disappearing and obtaining new abilities with each level defeated are very much in the vein of Mega Man.

Overall, this game is fine. It's good for an NES game, but the high level of difficulty and frustration are a good reminder, at least it was to me, that NES games are starting to show their age, and increasingly are becoming harder for me to revisit.

The title above is a direct quote from the game and is as random and non-nonsensical as it reads. I love it: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxgSGLTqfbJgLsTmdWbEHN_ynZB-s1Um79

This was a pretty bland arcade shooter that I loved as a kid growing up. I remember this being the first game I would run to after arriving at Chucky Cheese. Sadly the game hasn't aged well. It's still serviceable and I understand why I liked it as a kid. The character designs are very 90s in terms of aesthetics and very reminiscent of Street Sharks and TMNT. It turns out that this arcade is actually based off a cartoon that I never saw as a kid.

The first thing that makes this game feel bland is the lack of variety between the different playable characters. They all have the same exact attack. There's a mutant duck with four fucking arms and he still only uses a single hand gun... There's a robot with a giant cannon on his back, and likewise he only uses a hand gun... given each character a unique moveset and weapon would have gone a long way.

The next issue is the feedback you get from attacking enemies. It is either not present or over the top. Most enemies just kind of die without any interesting animations. The bosses, in contrast, are behemoth sponges for damage taking forever to kill. This makes your weapons seem like they hit like wet noodles. Yet you can also stun lock most of them which makes it possible to avoid most damage, but that's because they can't attack... you'll spend most boss fights standing in one spot, using your bomb to stun, then mindlessly mashing the shoot button. It's pretty boring as a result. The final boss shakes this up a bit by not being stunable, but it's still a pretty lame fight since you can stand in one spot and avoid all his attacks as you slowly whittle him down. Bombs are also weird in their feedback. Using it will eliminate most basic enemies on screen, but do little to mini-bosses and bosses (except stun them) which again doesn't give you any meaningful feedback. Health bars for the bosses and less health would have gone a long way.

The last issue is how this is a 2.5D shooter that is restricted to 2 directional shooting. Even Contra which came out years before, had 8-directional shooting. This further makes the gameplay feel bland. I get that 8-directional shooting is terrible with only one joy-stick, but there are 2-D sequences where you fly and you are still restricted to 2 directional shooting...

The writing and voice acting are horrendous but that didn't bother me. I actually found that to be the funnest part of the game. The sincere gibberish being spewed by characters. It makes it seem like the devs did a ton of acid, but their brains in a blender, then began work. A great case in point is the quote in the title of this review. I love it because it is so absurd and non-nonsensical. I just wish there were more ridiculous moments like it.

The graphics are pretty good for a 90s arcade. Certainly on par with TMNTs, Simpsons and X-men beat em ups. The sound design is pretty forgettable excluding the terrible voice acting which has a "so bad it's good" charm.

Overall, I probably will never play it again, but it was fun to make fun of it while playing it co-op with friends. Not a bad way to spend the night, just bring plenty of beer.