This was one of my favorite Dreamcast games growing up. I played the PS2 version later. Tragically, it's now an obscure and largely forgotten game, but not by me. So, I decided to make a review as a dedication on just how great it was.
After defeating their arch enemy, General Viggo, an elite team of animal soldiers called the Fur Fighters have settled down to living in peace in their village. But Viggo and his army of stupid bears have returned and kidnapped the Fur Fighters families to hold hostage while he pursues his goal of world domination. Now the fur fighters must fight one last battle to save their families and stop Viggo once and for all.
Basically, the game is brilliant mixture of Banjo Kazooie and Tomb Raider with a dash of James Bond. The final product? A third-person shooter/platformer with cute and cartoonish animals. But despite the high level of violence and weaponry, there's no blood, but fluff instead spouts from slain enemies. This made the game both intensely action packed and yet endearing and immediately caught my attention. Plus, there were clever and intricate puzzles the player had to solve to advance further or rescue certain babies, while others required the special ability of certain Fur Fighters like Roofus' burrowing, Juliete's climbing, or Tweeks gliding.
The main objective was to search twenty different levels to rescue the Fur Fighters kidnapped children and collect golden tokens to unlock new levels, defeat bosses, and obtain key items. The levels were huge, well-designed, and provided plenty of room for exploring, like the bustling, snowy streets of New Quack City, the Beaver Power valley full of huge construction machinery, and the lost world of Dinotopolis inhabited by multi-story tall dinosaurs.
The graphics and sound effects were awesome and funny. The music was catchy. The dialogue was witty and funny with lines spoken via cartoonish voice blips ala Banjo Kazooie. Finally, there were plenty of references to Star Wars, James Bond, Indiana Jones, and others that gave the game even more spirit that would attract film fans.
There were drawbacks though. As typical for early 3D platformers, the camera was frustrating at times. The multi-player mode was pretty fun but lacked certain features from other games at the time that made it feel lackluster. And personally, I found the actual voice acting in the PS2 version a bit disappointing and less enjoyable than the voice blips in the Dreamcast version.
Overall, this was a criminally underrated game that I still remember fondly today.
