Hello dear community,
being a big fan of lordkat's Until We Win, I enjoy to watch his episodes and thanks to him I could find and beat some really hard games.
I love Challenges and last time I saw his Top 10 worst game requests. As a tribute to LKs incredible work, I decided to play through "Snow White in happily ever after".
Cheetahmen was covered enough by the nerd, so I gave this game a shot.
But before I begin, keep these things in mind.
1. My mother tongue is not english, so please don't tear my text appart. I tried my best.
2. I consider myself a good video game player when it comes to jump and runs. I mean, I played all Super Mario Bros. games with more and more ridiculous restrictions, like no power ups and so on. But even with this, I'm not as good as Lordkat, who has beaten incredibly sadistic games like Dragons Lair, Battletoads and Silver Surfer.
Snow White in happily ever after
First a little history lesson. Once upon a time, Filmation wanted to make a sequel to the fairy tale Snow White. So they made an animated movie, got sued by disney and were forced to rename the sequel "in happily ever after".
In the sequel, Snow White together with the Prince decides to visit the seven dwarfs, to invite them to their wedding. But they are attacked by Maliss, the brother of the evil queen. He turns himself into a dragon and captures the prince, to transform him into a monster, the Shadow Man.
Long story short: Snow White and the seven dwarf-elves (sisters of the seven dwarfs, who took their house, because they moved) arrive the castle, Maliss is killed by a magic cloak, which can turn humans into stone, the Prince
is transformed back and they live happily ever after... again.
The movie was poorly received, most critics stated the forgettable animations and songs. It was the last film released by Filmation Studios. They tried everything to save this movie like the mentioned video game, but it failed.
I saw the movie and lets say it this way: It's a film, the Nostalgia Critic or the Nostalgia Chick would happily tear appart, together with Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night.
Like Lordkat said, take the game Rocky and Bullwinkle, mix it with Wizard of Oz and you get this game.
You can choose to play as Snow White or as the Shadow Man, aka the Prince. But there is no difference, both play pretty much the same.
Jumping mechanics are complete off. If you jump on one block, there is a chance that your character tries to keep balance and falls down.
The graphics are nice, but that's it. The Sound effects are pretty much the same, only the enemy sprites and the damage they take, changes. The music differs only slighty from stage to stage.
You have 4 Symbols at the bottom of the screen.
The first one is your health, shown by a heart. If you get hit by an enemy, fall down a pit, fall from to high, it will decrease by one.
If you get hit, you are invincible for a short period of time.
Reach 0 health, and it's game over. You have as far as I know 2 continues,
The second sign shows, how many apples you have. Except from jumping on the heads of your enemies, this is your main "weapon". You need it also to destroy blocks.
The third symbol shows, how many special attacks you can perform. It's mostly an apple, you throw, which hits the bottom, explods into several apples and hits multiple enemies. I think you can call it an applebomb.
The fourth symbol is a coin. I think you need them to finish the level. I'm not sure, I couldn't find enough information on the internet, because the game isn't much discussed.
I mean, you run through the level, collect lots of fruits and coins, then the text "Find the Exit" appears, you run to a sign with "Exit" written on it and boom, the level is finished.
There are seven levels, the most of them are devided in two parts.
In every world you will get hunted by one particular enemy. You can take them out with a jump. Just collect as much stuff as you can till the text shows up, then find the exit sign.
The first two levels are a piece of cake. In the third level, "Mother Nature" however, you will encounter sunflowers.These things have a high fire range and take 2-3 hits to kill.
There are also some jumping parts, that are downright sadistic.
The fourth world takes the cake when it comes to frustration. First there are the enemies.
A tree, that will hold you, if you come to close and comits suicide by jumping off the cliff with you and... spiders.
They take 4 hits to kill and they are pretty fast.
The second part is incredibly frustrating.
You start at a falling platform and need to run as fast as you can to the left side, jump over two another falling platforms and need to run even further to have enough speed, to jump over the big gap. There you will touch the flag, probably bounce off and fall into a chasm.
Now if you walk right from the flag, a spring will launch you into the air.
You can't controll your character, if you are launched, so you will probably miss the moving platform and fall to your doom several times. If you managed to hit the moving platform, congratulations.
Now you need to collect enough stuff and exit the stage. If you fall off however, you have to do the mentioned bullshit at the flag all over again.
In the fifth level, crystal caves, the plattforming will get even more annoying. You have moving crystals and you have stone platforms, which will fall off. There are also bats, that will knock you off.
The mud river is the only level that has only one part to complete. The screen moves, you are on a float
and try not to fall into the water.
The courtyard is the last level. You will get a lot of items in the last part, which are needed to defeat the first and last boss of this game: Maliss
He will fight you in his dragon form. How do you fight him? You throw apples at him.
Yes, you defeat him with APPLES.
I have seen a lot of weird stuff in video games, like plumbers, who kick the ass of a giant turtle to rescue a princess. Or a large ball, which sucks items in and spits it as stars at its enemies.
Or a cat robot riding a moogle robot and who hits enemies with a megaphone... or a blitzball player who throws a volleyball that can turn monsters to stone.
But a DRAGON who is defeated by APPLES?! Thats new...
If you use the apple bomb, his attacks won't even hit you.
After that, there is the ending. It's just three images that are simply not worth the effort.
I played this game on hard and had not really any trouble. And I could not beat Silver Surfer or Dragons Lair. This game was more a job for the AVGN than for the LK.
If I think back, I really did this to myself. But there is something good. Now I know, how it feels to play rotten games and also write something about them. Now I know, how most reviewers must feel.
Well, I did it as a tribute to one of my favourite game reviewers. Now I will play some Super Mario Bros.
to purge the painful memories out of my brain.
So, what else do I have to say?
Thank you Jason for your great work. Keep it up, you kick ass.
