By Ned Jordan
The
Fancy Pants Adventures is a platform game that is all about the fun and spirit
of old school console games, and in fact it owes a lot to Sonic the Hedgehog.'
There are plenty of loops, ramps, and spring pads everywhere and the game
doesn't hesitate to take its levels vertical. But it's more than the style of
the levels that harkens back to the spiky blue guy's heyday; it's also the
speed. Dash down a ramp into a loop and chain together another move or two and
you'll be flying through the levels at Sonic speeds. Even all of those rings are
there for the grabbing, although in this game they're little hand-drawn squiggly
lines.' If the name didn't clue you in on the fact that the game is rather
lighthearted and neglects to take itself seriously, one look at the game's
graphics will make it obvious. Your character is a stick figure, albeit one with
spiky hair and the titular fancy pants, and his world has a hand-drawn, almost
childlike look to it.' This is a simple-looking game that's simply about the fun
of platform gaming.
Just as in all classic platform games your progress through the world is
impeded by various enemies that wander back and forth on the platforms, and in
true platform style to defeat them you must jump on them. It's a two-step
process in The Fancy Pants Adventures, though, as they just curl up for a bit
when jumped on and to truly get rid of them you'll have to follow the head-jump
with a string kick to send them flying. Well, at least for the first half of the
game or so. After that you're given a weapon to bonk enemies with that can also
be charged up to deal with stronger foes. The weapon takes a lot of fun out of
the game because it slows down the pure fun of the high-speed platforming,
especially with the added delay of waiting for it to get charged up.
And now we get to the not so good part - the controls.' The game uses
left and right arrows for movement that sit in the lower left corner of the
screen and another arrow for jumping in the lower right.' Using the
directional arrows is difficult because not only do they not always register
your pushes, they sometimes incorrectly register a push when you're just on the
vicinity of the button.' This leads to a lot of runs to the left when you
hit the right arrow and frustrating missed jumps because the game simply didn't
take your arrow press.' For a game built on high-speed runs and well-timed
jumps it's a deal-breaker.
Final Rating:
68%.
