Mischief Makers

On the planet Clancer, the evil Emperor and his forces are brainwashing the populace into joining him. A visiting roboticist, Professor Theo, is abducted by imperial forces. Now, it's up to the professor's greatest creation, a robotic maid named Marina Liteyear, to set out and rescue him.

You might think a 2.5D game released on the N64 wouldn't be very fun or appealing with titles like Super Mario 64 released a year prior. But personally, this wasn't an issue for me. I was a huge Donkey Kong Country fan as a kid, so the games pre-rendered characters and backgrounds caught my attention. And I loved the games surreal atmosphere and goofy looking character designs. The soundtrack was well made and ranged from high and cheerful intro theme to the tense and awesome boss themes.

You'll guide Marina across five different worlds and over 50 levels. The gameplay is a clever mixture of platforming action and puzzle solving, being centered around Marina's distinctive grappling ability as she grabs and launches herself from clanball to clanball, or shake and throw objects and enemies until she reaches the levels end and teleports to the next. The gameplay is fast-paced thanks to the swift Marina's built-in jetpack allowing her to run, jump, hover, and glide through the levels.

The game wasn't without its flaws though. With 50 levels, you'd think the game might take a while to beat, but most of the levels aren't very long, so the game is rather short; I beat it once in only a few hours. And I found the story confusing at times and the dialogue was awkward; poor translation from Japanese to English, maybe. But I loved Marina's voice clips, like her triumphant "Yahoo!" or her "Shake, shake" catchphrase as she performs her grapple and shake move.

Sadly, this game was largely forgotten by more successful 3D titles released at the time. But it's become something a cult classic, and I personally consider it one of the N64's most underrated titles.

Mischief Makers, besides being one of the few 2D sidescrollers for the N64, combined sidescrollers and puzzles, which I found to be a lot of fun.

The character Marina is engaging to use, especially her ability to shake and throw the objects in her environment. I love the quirky, distinctive design in this, the weird looking citizens and and the face blocks. Story also has a lot of plot for a platformer. Its interesting and the characters are distinctive and humorous. The game also does a good job of bonus achievements important. Each level has a hidden gem you have to acquire. I won't spoil what you get for getting them all, but it is important.

The one downside I had with the game is that one of the levels requires you to tap a button really fast a la the torture segment in Metal Gear Solid. I, among others, physically have trouble tapping that fast.

Overall, it's a great game that I miss playing.