Plok

"Sad to see such a fun game overlooked so easily..."

Plok is a fun and neat kind of game that was released by Tradewest in 1993 for the Super Nintendo. This game did not get popular. This game was sadly overlooked, yet it was such a great game. It provided hours and hours of fun for the people who got around and did play it. With all that good stuff, it’s a surprise that it turned out the way it did in terms of popularity.

Graphics were pretty damn good, I’d say. It looks just like a cartoon. It’s quite obvious that the creators weren’t going for a realistic look. You’d swear you were watching a cartoon, with those corny little trees with buttons on them. It makes the entire game have a “fun” atmosphere. After all, would you want to play a cartoonish game with a serious and realistic environment? I think naught.

Yes, this game does have a story. Not the best story, but not the worst, either. It’s very corny, but once again that makes it a little bit more fun. It develops very slightly throughout the game, but no really big changes. It starts off with Plok, the main character with a yellow body and red detachable limbs, goes outside his house to see that his favorite flag, his square flag was stolen! So, since he can’t find it anywhere on this home continent, he goes off to find it on a place called Cotton Island, where a pair of brothers called the Bobbins Brothers have stolen it. After getting it back, he goes back to his continent where he finds that fleas have taken over all of the land, replacing all of Plok’s flags with flea flags! Corny? Oh yeah. But important to the game? Nah.

The sound was not that bad. Some sounds, like water splashes, were not that great, but most others are pretty good. But the music in the game shines. Most of the songs are nice and upbeat, and fit very well into the level’s environment or the situation. Did you ever get to that Creepy Crag level? The song in that level was awesome! The boss theme was also really good. It seemed to fit in extremely well with the boss you are fighting.

When playing the game, you have four main areas to go through: Cotton Island, Ackarillic (Spelled it wrong, I think), Legacy Island, and the Flea Pit. However, this can be changed around a bit depending on the level of difficulty you play on. There are two difficulty levels: Child’s Play and Normal. Normal mode is normal (hence the name of the difficulty level), and you have to complete everything when you play it through. However, in Child’s Play, you do not have to do Legacy Island, the end of Ackarillic, or the Flea Pit. (You can play the first level of Legacy Island though. Also in Child’s Play, your enemies go much slower, some things can be killed that couldn’t be killed in normal mode, etc. It makes the game much easier, but it kind of sucks because you can’t play the entire game. That forces you to play in the normal mode, with some invincible and much faster enemies.

A only big gripe I found with this game is that you could not save. This is extremely unfortunate, because it can take quite a while to play through the whole game, plus dealing with all the deaths and do-overs. So if you’re looking to play through the whole game, take my word: Make sure you have plenty of time.

I don’t know, but I’ve got a love for the Super Nintendo. If you’ve got the same thing, I recommend that you buy a used copy of this game. Considering the date of the system and the game, you can easily get it for less than a lousy four bucks. After all, this game truly should have gotten more recognition at the time it came out. It was a real fun game that kept you playing for hours. So please... try it out. I can almost guarantee that you’ll enjoy it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/13/01, Updated 05/13/01