Mr. Do!

"Universal has an excellent puzzler that would probably never fly today"

OPENING STATEMENT
The Super Nintendo age was the golden age for puzzle games, much like now is the golden age for role-playing games, and the early eighties was the golden age for space shooters. Each genre will have their own time in the spotlight, and the early nineties were the puzzle games turn. Mr. Do is one of the better byproducts of the puzzle games major influence on the world of video games at this time period. However, Mr. Do in today’s market, despite its greatness, would probably be lucky if it sold half as much as the Super Nintendo version. Not because it is bad, as it hardly is. The market is different, and plus Mr. Do just feels like an early nineties game, while games like Chrono Trigger and Tetris can span the test of time.

GAMEPLAY--10
Mr. Do offers up an addicting combination of killing, destruction, and thinking, which makes Mr. Do one of the few puzzle games that diehard Doom and Quake fans could possibly enjoy. The object of Mr. Do is to hurl your little ball at your opponents, who chase you around a map that is filled with tunnels. Although the concept may sound odd, it certainly is excellent.

Say you are about to be cornered, and one of your opponents is about to defeat you. What on earth can you do? Walk into one of the walls of the tunnel! You will start forming your own tunnel. Twist and turn your tunnel around and you will eventually lose your opponents in the labyrinth.

What really makes Mr. Do a puzzle game I will explain to you next. Once you really have carved out an extensive maze of passageway, you need to establish which way to throw the ball that you will actually hit an enemy. You will also need to quickly be able to navigate the passageways to pick up the ball again if you hit no one, as the ball is only automatically returned to you when you hit an enemy.

GRAPHICS--3
A graphical showcase Mr. Do is not. Probably, at least graphically, the only time that Mr. Do would have been impressive is as one of the first Nintendo Entertainment System games. The characters look like little jugglers. Very, very, little jugglers. Your character is the absolute smallest of any video game ever created. And that height, or lack there of, gives Mr. Do an instant unprofessional look.

The environments in Mr. Do are slightly more classy but not much. The levels are all made up of various patterns, like those patterns that you create in third grade art class. The cherries and other fruit look pretty good, but the environments are not impressive in the least bit. Plus some of the colors that they selected for the patterns do not seem to go together in the least bit.

MUSIC--5
SOUND--8
The music is just your typical Super Nintendo puzzle game fare. Nothing really sets it apart from other games. Mr. Do’s music tries hard to be kind of cute by adding little train whistles here and there throughout the songs, but Universal really should have required some more work in the music department. Almost half of the songs in Mr. Do I felt like I had heard them somewhere before, even though Mr. Do is the first game in it’s series.

The sound effects, however, are pretty good. Mr. Do himself, or at least when he is cutting through the environment, makes some entertaining noises that sound kind of like really, really weak timber falling to the ground. The ball makes a bouncy noise as it bounces around the pathways, and the menu noises keep up with the theme. Universal did a far better job with the sound effects than the music.

CONTROL--7
Mr. Do actually does a pretty good job on the control front. Mr. Do himself moves by using the Control Pad. ‘Y’ and ‘X’ have no function, while ‘A’ and ‘B’ both cause Mr. Do to throw his little ball. (It is very hard to talk about a character when the game’s name is the same as the character’s name.) Mr. Do (the character) is quite responsive, although a bit of a lag occasionally happens when you wish to throw the ball at an enemy, and that little bit of lag has made me meet my doom more than once.

FUN--8
Despite all of Mr. Do’s shortcomings, I actually had quite a bit of fun playing Mr. Do. The Battle Mode is quite entertaining, and it is very fun to have to throw your ball at the second player, as well as the oncoming monsters. The good thing about the Original Mode is that you can play that mode in one or two players as well. Mr. Do actually is one of the more fun puzzle games ever created. Chances are that you will have the most fun in the Battle Mode, though, just because the Battle Mode is basically the Original Mode with the ability to throw your ball at the second player as well. And that surely is a good thing.

CHALLENGE--HIGH
The first two levels, in the Original Mode, of Mr. Do are not difficult at all. When I first began playing Mr. Do I thought “Hey, this is going to be a cakewalk.” And then I hit the third level. The third level is the blockade between simple puzzle fun, and hair-pulling, mind-boggling difficulty. The third level is more than a symbolic blockade as well. On the third level, for the first time, the monsters of your opponents really start to go after you, and chase you around the map, really causing you to create your own passageways. What makes everything more difficult is that you only have three lives, and one hit and you lose one of those three lives.

REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM
In a game that most of the ratings seem to be at one of the two extremes, the replay value in Mr. Do is surprisingly enough in the middle. Chances are that, especially at first, the Original Mode, be it in one or two player, will get most of your playing time. But, after you have gotten the hang of Mr. Do, and especially if you have by some miracle managed to beat Mr. Do completely, you will be spending most of your time in the Battle Mode, as that offers the most fun, and the best multiplayer action in Mr. Do.

PROS
*No other puzzle game like it.
*Fans of violent games will not scorn it.
*Battle Mode provides an interesting break from the action.

CONS
*Graphics would be dated for an original Nintendo game.
*The music is basic, nothing new.
*Insanely difficult once you hit the third level.

CLOSING STATEMENT
Mr. Do is one of the more innovative puzzle games around. It also spans more than two genres better than most any game around. And the tunneling, ball-throwing, juggling hero of Mr. Do is worth a few laughs in his own. While the superficial categories really hurt Mr. Do, it’s gameplay and fun are too much to pass up.

OVERALL--7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/00, Updated 07/18/01