A welcome improvement on the previous game, "Eskimo Bob: Starring Alfonzo"
The graphics and gameplay here are pushing the limits of the NES, legitimately on the same level of innovation as something like super mario bros 3. I am impressed they managed to fit this much content, and variety of content into a single NES cartridge. I do know that they did some physical tricks using some extra chips in the cart to get this game to work, nothing unprecedented but certainly a rare and time consuming task, and they somehow not only got it to work, but made a good game with it.
The key here is variety. The last game had the same unending 10 second music loop in every single level and after 3 hours, it really got to me. I don't know if they loop is longer now, or because different worlds have different music, but it was much less draining. There is a greater variety in monsters, abilities, and characters. Since Bob is missing, there's Alfonzo, and 3 other characters each with their own unique ability and drawbacks to help you beat the levels.
This game shines with the boss fights. Each one is an entirely different genre and totally different from the rest of the game, they are almost like extremely difficult minigames. I found out a couple patterns to beat them which helped a lot, but even with that, the final boss was about as hard as the first game. Aggravating but fair and demands more and more perfection with each boss, which is fine by me.
There is a world map with multiple pathways, SECRET PATHWAYS, and more. The level design allows for a lot of freedom of movement and different ways of completing them, I think this mechanic alone made me like the game a lot more. Sometimes you are forced to use a certain character or a certain pathway, but often you can save some time or if you find a certain part of the level easier to do, you can complete it without changing characters or utilizing the looping level to do it backwards. I even found a way to skip 90% of a level in a way that was definitely not intended by the developer.
The map is probably the worst part of this game, now that I understand it a bit more It's not so bad, but still not great. There are secret fish in every level hidden inside a block you destroy. This is a fun challenge as it changes the way you have to complete the level and forces you to take more into consideration than just blindly collecting fish. If you miss the golden fish and complete the level, it will show a screen asking if you want to try again or continue, if you collect it, it doesn't show this. If you click continue, you can never replay the level again, or even go back to previous worlds. It kind of defeats the purpose of the map due to this. Choosing the order you complete levels and skipping some is nice, but if I want to 100% the game it means I have to take a VERY specific path in order to do so, and straying from it means I have to savescum or restart the game entirely. So I beat the game twice. Luckily it's pretty good otherwise and it's fun to master the mechanics.
Everything here just feels more solid, more varied, more everything good about the original, it kept my attention for much longer and this is genuinely a great NES title. The number of levels if higher but I didn't feel as fatigued because there was more purpose to what I was doing than just an onslaught of levels. In hindsight maybe the world map did alleviate that more than anything else. This is to Eskimo Bob as what Mario Bros 3 is to Mario Bros 1. I think that was the intent here anyway, the world map, boss system, and general innovation all call to mind something that was inspired by it but not copying it. This is much more of a puzzle game than Mario, and I enjoy it a lot for that. Similar to in Mario 3 there's a mechanic for warp zones that just instantly lets you skip a few worlds. I think my first run I ended up skipping 1/3 of a game, I don't think this needed to be in the game and is one of the times I think they took too much influence from Mario. I wanted to go back and play those other levels! In Mario it's not a big deal because everything is a collect-a-thon, but in this I actually kind of wanted to see what the boss was and what the levels had to offer and I couldn't go back to do it.
For what this is (A modern NES title) it takes the right amount of influence from the right places and still keeps it in sync with 80s and 90s game dev values with a few sprinkles of modernity. This is a classic old game that is worth taking a look at even if you aren't into retro aesthetics. It's simple compared to a lot of modern games but it's solid and well made. It's time to slow down a little bit and go back to the days of a single mis-pressed button bringing you to tears :)
Give this a shot if you like puzzle platformers, you won't be disappointed.
