Garfield no Isshukan

"If there is a mistake a platformer can make, Garfield made it."

Garfield. Imagine my pleasant surprise after finding my favorite comic strip had a franchise game to go with it. Surprise gave away to dismay and disgust when I actually played the game, which is entirely riddled with mistakes and problems.

The premise: Odie is missing. You, Garfield, must find him. The process takes seven days; you start on Monday and finish on Sunday.

Let's start with graphics. The backgrounds are boring and ugly. There is little to them, and they were probably thrown together very quickly. The low quality of the background even interferes with gameplay. Many times I found lines that appeared to be platforms, but were not. There were lines that did not appear to be platforms, but were. There were even instances of falling when it appeared Garfield was walking upon solid ground. Your enemies consist of various poorly-drawn animals.

The graphics aren't a complete loss. Garfield himself actually look similar to how he does in the strip, and he has a respectable number of frames of animation. Not good enough to warrant the game a score better than 1.

If a soundtrack for this game was ever released, it would contain less than a single minute of music. There are only three actual songs in the game--all of which repeat in just a few seconds--and the crummy intro music. In addition to being brief, these songs truly do sound terrible, with both the technical value and enjoyment value of something from the Atari 2600. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single game (other than 2600 games) that has a worse soundtrack. There aren't very many sound effects, but the few that exist are also very irritating.

Briefly, Garfield plays like most NES platformers. You walk through a level, fighting the critters that come your way, and move on to the next level. You lose your health by coming into contact with any of these critters, and the game ends when you run out of health. No extra lives, no continues, no second chances whatsoever. You recover health by picking up items such as milk and coffee. You also use a few weapons that you collect along the way, but for the most part you fight by kicking enemies.

The problems are numerous, so I'll put them in list format.

- No period of invincibility after you get hit. A single surprise bird could kill you and instantly.
- Only one life. Combined with the first problem, that single bird could put an immediate end to the whole game.
- Enemies behave erratically, adding to the frustration of the game.
- The collision detection is not very good.
- Weapons are hard to aim and cumbersome to select, rendering them useless except for a few rare situations.
- Enemies come out and attack very quickly, making it extremely difficult to react. Luck and knowledge of the levels are your only hope.
- Periodically you find doors, and to open the doors you have to find a key by jumping around at random until the key shows up. Meanwhile, you are vulnerable to surprise attacks and your clock is ticking down.
- There are a few bosses which can kill you very quickly.

To summarize, your survival depends on luck and knowledge of when the enemies will attack. It is extremely frustrating, and you will see a lot of cheap game overs unless you give up right away, which most players probably will.

Garfield turned out to be just another lousy franchise game, unfortunately based on a great comic strip. There is little good to say about it, and I am sure that Jim Davis would be very disappointed. Don't waste your time.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/01, Updated 07/05/01