Mischief Makers

I wasn't kidding when I said my game reviews would be really late. This is for a system three generations old, but still stands strong to this day.

Mischief Makers is a game for the Nintendo 64 and was one of the first few games to feature 3D models on a 2 dimensional playing field. This was surprising, as many developers were trying to move into 3D at the time, and showing you had the ability to, without harnessing the potential felt very awkward to quite a good chunk of people. Many developers were also trying to follow in the popular footsteps of Super Mario 64 by making their own 3D platformers. One of the few that succeeded was Banjo-Kazooie. It tried to build itself into an individual game that happened to be a 3D platformer, instead of trying to ride on the tail of Super Mario 64's fame. Many developers tend to do that, trying to make money off of a simple Nintendo game clone. It happened when Pokemon and Metroid Prime came out as well. I suppose this has nothing to do with Mischief Makers though, since the first 2.5D game they made was Yoshi's story (unless you count the Virtual Boy game Warioware, which had 2D sprites in a 3D landscape) and that came out much later in the life of the N64.

I used to go to a video game rental store every Monday night. My brother and I got to rent 2 video games. He would either get Mischief Makers or Pilot Wings and I would either get Wave Race, Space Station Silicon Valley, or Blast Corps. I loved all of these games, but Mischief Makers is my focus right now.

Mischief Makers used the D-pad. How many N64 games used the D-pad? I'm guessing that number is about three, and the other 2 sucked something fierce. The analog stick was so new, and many developers thought it would add so much to their games. They were right. Still, Mischief Makers was smart for sticking to the d-pad. In true 2D platformer spirit, there is no reason to even have 8 direction, let alone 360 degrees of movement. This meant that the game would have been suited for play on the Super Nintendo, had the 16 bit graphics been up to par for this game (which they wouldn't have been).

The mechanics of this game still shine through the years. The movement is very similar to Megaman games, pre-wall slide. You can dash and dash jump. You can dash before jumping, while jumping, or both. You can also dash in all directions, though down is not useful when on the ground. Actually, a down dash while on the ground does a roll. Anyways, this is turning into a summary when it should be an analysis. The most interesting movement aspect was the up dash. It didn't make you fly much higher, so could only make you reach places you were almost already at. Mostly it was useful when I needed to stay in the air a little longer. puzzles that made the up dash useful are what this game is all about. Small little quirky ideas build a great game.

One of those small things that was expanded into a game defining mechanic was the mixing system. You really don't know what you're missing until you understand that shurikens and boomerangs are both made out of flowers. In fact, there are no ingredients in a boomerang that aren't flowers. How cool is that? The mixing used the game's signature "shake shake" to power itself. This shaking could change many numbers of things. Shaking people made them drop gems or items. Shaking bombs made them tick faster. Shaking poles could extend or retract them and shaking some balls could reorient gravity. Basically, the game inspiring picking up and shaking everything they wasn't hinged to the floor.

The story was weird. I still don't understand it fully. They steal your grandfather because... they want to distract you, so you don't save the world? And then you try to rescue him anyways. You do math because... the townspeople are having a carnival. Wait... your grandfather is the 1st place trophy... Yes, this plot totally makes sense. Still, the game is intense fun, and I'm sure you could understand all the plot once you beat it once or twice.

Unfortunately, the emulations of this game aren't all perfect, so I can't actually get to the end. I own this game so I have no qualms downloading the ROM, which is much easier than would be finding my N64 and hooking it up. However, the ROM has one major flaw. There are several other flaws in the ROM that are little enough to overlook, but the big one is the invisible boulder in later levels. The sprite file must be missing. This sucks because I can't dodge a boulder if I can't see when it's going to fall on me.

Yes, the difficulty does get progressively harder, but that shouldn't be a problem since it starts out at such as easy level, and only gets more interesting level designs as the difficulty ramps up.

I would suggest going out and getting this game right away. If you don't have an N64, finding one for cheap on eBay would totally be worth it (especially if you grab other N64 games I will inevitably review later). If you can't, please find some way to contribute to the developers who are so great before you go out and download it (in the most legal fashion as I assume you all to do. Some places say it's legal for 24 hours before you have to delete it. I'm not sure if this is true).

All in all, I give this game a great out of 10. It is immensely fun and has kept me engrossed for the greater part of a decade.