"Anime + Interactivity - Plot = Mischief Makers"

How, exactly, am I supposed to review a game as odd and flawn, yet awesome, as this? The strange, yet existing, fun factor simply draws you into the game, and makes you forget the lack of the plot. It also makes you forget your friends, your lunch, and any social life you might've had. Then you beat the game, and get lots of gold gems. Then you immediately regain everything you used to have, and where does Mischief Makers go? Straight into the deep, dark depths of your basement, room, or God knows where else you play your Nintendo 64. Simply put, the game is wonderful and engrossing for about 15 hours of straight play, and then you forget everything about it. I thank God I've only played it at a friend's house, because he understood my incredible addiction with the game. When I slept over there one night, it was mostly Mischief Makers until I beat it. Then it stood there the next morning, me completely away from it. Completely natural, because of its lack of true replay value. And that was only half a month ago. Still quite fresh in my memory. Now, I'm telling you, the viewers of Game FAQs, about my quite odd experience with this unique game.

The Graphics in the game are nothing that most people (read: normal people) would get into. The moment an anime fan sees that there's actually a game with anime style pictures on the Nintendo 64, though, they'll go nuts. This game is very similar to anime (Japanese animation, for the ignorant) in terms of Graphics. For some people, this could be a very good thing. For others, it could be a very bad thing. It all depends on your take on anime. I, personally, like it a lot. The other strange thing about the Graphics is that they are two dimensional, unlike so many other Nintendo 64 games on the market. 90% of the people on this planet left 2D behind during its demise with the Playstation, and are very happy about their precious 3D Graphics (no stereotypes here, people). The other 10% of people wish for the good old days to return. Mischief Makers brings that small percentage their wish, for it is beautiful 2D. As I said, for the two important reasons (anime style and 2D), different people will have different opinions on the Graphics. However, I like it, a lot.

The music and general sound of Mischief Makers is unlike anything anybody, anime freak or not, has never understood before. Most of the music tracks are actually very nice, and an odd change from the normal. For example, there's the theme of the first few levels, which is generally a heroic little tune, that is perfectly fitting with the style of the game graphic-wise. The boss fight theme is intense and brings out everything cool about the fight. Very similar to anime, indeed. Most of the sound effects in the game are quite nice, varying from the sound of shaking a clanball to the sound of sliding along the ground. These are quite nice, actually. The problem with the sound, though, is all in the voices. The professor sounds annoying and generic, like one expects in a professor. He overdoes it. I don't want a high old man voice for somebody who actually looks fairly cool in pictures of the game. Marina's voice, the voice you have to hear all through the game, is EXTREMELY annoying, and too high pitched. Sorry, but the voices bring the score down quite a bit.

The play control takes some getting used to, but eventually feels perfectly fine. The A button lets you jump. The B button grabs things. The Start button pauses the game. The Control Pad lets you move Marina around. The C Down button lets you ''shake'' items, which brings out items, unlocks certain points in the level, or makes a transporter appear. The other C buttons can make you move in the air, make you fly, or make you get off some of the things you grab onto extremely fast in the direction. Mostly, the game controls finely, with no real problems. However, I do not like the abundance of things that the C buttons do. They can make you fly if you're in the air, make you dash, or do many different things while grabbed on. There are too many uses, and can get confusing. I also think that throwing yourself off some of the items you grab onto, by pressing the B button while on them, takes some serious practice to master. You can throw yourself in many directions without some serious focus on what direction you're aiming with the Control Pad.

There's not much to the story, whatsoever. It sounds like they were trying to give the game a good plot, but it failed seriously in the execution. Basically, the Generic Anime Professor, named Professor Theo, has been captured by the Evil Empire (yes, that's what it's called). You play as Marina, the Generic Anime robot maid of Professor Theo, who goes out to save your master. When you save him, he gets captured again. Commence for five worlds. Some of the ideas, such as the whole ''Clancer War'' thing, were actually quite original. They just weren't developed whatsoever. Too bad, though. I'd expect much more from an anime game.

However, all of these flaws are made up for by awesome Game Play. Basically, in each level, your goal is to get to the star which transports you out of the level. You can do this by simply finding it at the end of the stage, defeating the boss, or completing a number of different potential tasks. That's about it, for the most part. However, the tasks you must do in order to reach the star are quite fun. In some levels, you must use Clanbombs to explode walls to get through, and shake the Clanballs (How original, eh?) to reset the walls, making you get to new heights. This is a very enjoyable level to do, because of its simple amount of times you may have to do the same areas in order to do it right. This game requires very good reflexes to get through some of the harder levels. In another level, you have to defeat Migen Junior and his father. This is done by throwing Migen Junior's arms back at him. However, if he takes too much damage, his father heals him. How do you get around this? By throwing the arms at the father and killing HIM, of course! It's simple ideas like this that make Mischief Makers so original, and fun.

Mischief Makers is a somewhat challenging game, that has its easy points and its hard points. One problem with the Challenge is that the bosses are far too easy, in most cases. I can rock the second, third, and forth world's bosses in no time flat, and without taking damage as well. Some of the levels in the game, on the other hand, are incredibly hard. One example of this is the Seven Clancer Kids level, where you have to chase after seven extremely fast clancers, who are running away from their mother (I have no clue why). They are some fast little guys. The only way around this is catching them off guard, which definitely is no easy task. This strange balance of difficulty and easiness makes for a very varying game, but some of it gets a bit too extreme.

Unfortunately, the Replay Value in Mischief Makers is nearly unexistant. After beating the game once, there isn't much to do, and there definitely isn't too many extra areas you could complete. You could go for the Gold Gem in each stage, a somewhat tough gem to find in the stage. However, this really isn't that tough. I got most of them in one night, actually. If you've played through the entire game, you probably are good enough to do this with little to no problems. The other option is getting some of the highest times in a stage. Most of these are virtually impossible, and require very little frustration potential to get. You could be frustrated very difficultly, and still get angry at some of the times necessary.

OVERALL SCORES
Graphics: 9/10
Sound/Music: 6/10
Play Control: 16/20
Story: 5/20
Game Play: 25/30
Challenge: 12/15
Replay Value: 5/15
OVERALL: 78/120, 65%, rounded up for personal preferences: 7/10

Mischief Makers definitely isn't your ordinary video game. Some of the problems in the game are serious, and there really aren't many great points to the game to back it up. However, the simple addiction that you will get in the game until you beat it nonetheless remains, and WILL draw you into the game if you start it. If you can find it cheaply, you should buy the game. If you can rent it, that's even better! This is a game that should be rent by any means necessary, but should only be bought by the biggest fans. Beware the game.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/01, Updated 07/21/01