Save me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition

I grew up on the old NES and gameboy. I have some fond memories of playing on the GB, though I preferred the NES, Genesis, and SNES over it as the games did not always feel complete. There were some exceptions. Save me Mr. Tako aims for those lofty heights and fails a good chunk. The story follows of Tako, a pacifist octopus who gets sucked into the octopus-human wars. He gets blessed by a fairy to walk above ground and to help stop the war. What goes on from there is a very serious look at the devastation of war on 2 different groups of people. I greatly enjoyed how emotive the characters as it gave them a lot of charm as well as cutting the tension when things were getting too serious. Graphically, this is a mixed bag. The developer was clearly going for a super game boy vibe as it stays very true to the 4 color palette of the GB. Some are rather nice, while others hurt my eyes (anything that has a sunny day or tropical vibe). Otherwise, it looks really nice as it has a Kirby-esq vibe to it. The graphics are clean and it's easy to make out what is what. The world feels a bit lived in as NPCs roam the levels. There's also no way that a GB game would have been as detailed as Tako. Game play is a fairly standard platformer. Tako shoots out ink and whenever an opponent soaks up enough of it, they're frozen in spot. This allows players to reach areas they ordinarily wouldn't be able to normally. The main pull of the game is all of the different hats Tako can wear as some shake up the game play for puzzle solving. However, those hats are few and far between. The normal difficulty causes Taro to lose a life after a single hit. The hats provide an extra hit, however it doesn't solve the core problem. That core problem is the level design. The game starts off decent enough as Taro is able to plow the beginning with relative ease. It looks like a Kirby clone. Things quickly change after the first hour. It's hard to predict enemy placements due to how it's structured as well as it being too zoomed in (remember, this is a GB game). The game tries to play fair, there's just 1 too many leaps of faith, 1 too many enemies placed in odd places that there's barely any time to anticipate, 1 too many poorly telegraphed pits. What really killed any momentum I had was a stealth section, and the game was not designed around it. And yes it is probably easier than entire games built around it, it killed any joy the game had left. It doesn't help that the controls are a bit sticky so Taro has a slight delay in his actions. I found myself repeating numerous times "I pressed A to jump!" The volcano section is a perfect example: pixel perfect precision with required memorization with sticky controls. It was too difficult for the wrong reasons. Sound wise, the game is decent. The soundtrack was enjoyable when playing it. In conclusion, I really wanted to love Save me Mr. Tako. I'm super glad I got it for a cheap price as I'd be grumpier if I paid full price for it. And this game was designed for gamers like me. The level design and the controls just tank this game. I've made this game sound like a monster: it isn't a poorly made game. It really needed some extra time in the oven. I know remakes are all the rage these days. Tako would definitely benefit from one: give it SNES graphics, tighten the controls, loosen up the pixel precision required to progress, refine the level design and it would feel like a hidden gem from the 90s that it wants to be. I really want there to be a sequel to fix all of my complaints because Tako has so much potential and it's a shame to see him stuck like he is.