The story of the game is that the sacred rainbow has shattered into seven pieces and it's up to Ardy to obtain them all again. Whoever collects all seven pieces will receive one wish. An evil king named Visconti has already gotten one piece and is searching for the others. To this end he sends out various creatures and henchmen such as Beecroft, Catry and others. These creatures form the opponents for Ardy during the game. Ardy is assisted by friends along the way like the elder (unknown name), Nina, and a mysterious adventurer named Don Jacoby.
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in some alternate timeline ardy lightfoot is a big deal and titus isnt remembered for that other game. or not
super charming and colorful, somewhat challenging and a bit janky but i think that’s just snes platformers in general. controls have just gotten tighter since. i think
the bouncy jump is kinda annoying to perform.
the ost is a standout. gonna have to go download it
super charming and colorful, somewhat challenging and a bit janky but i think that’s just snes platformers in general. controls have just gotten tighter since. i think
the bouncy jump is kinda annoying to perform.
the ost is a standout. gonna have to go download it
I recently re-watched snesdrunk's review of Ardy Lightfoot where he describes it as comfort food. That pretty much hits the nail on the head for what this game is like for me: it's nothing exceptional, nor bad, its just comfortable. I've got a soft spot for it as it was a childhood game, but having done a recent playthrough again its flaws and all are a lot more apparent to me now.
Getting the best parts out of the way first, the presentation of the game is pretty cool. The only bit of dialogue is before the first real level of the game, explaining the purpose of the rainbow gems, after which its entirely conveyed through actions and expressions. The character sprite work here is good, everyone expressing a clear emotion in response to a situation or in an effort to give an idea of their personality, ultimately conveying a decent story. Cutscenes also often seamlessly transition to and from gameplay.
The music is perhaps my favourite part of the game. Its just sooo good. They all fit their respective moments and locations and really lend themselves well to enhancing the game's adventurous, long journey vibe. Hard to pick a fave track, its all just really memorable for me.
The gameplay is the majority of what makes up Ardy Lightfoot and unfortunately is also one of its weakest points. Its a simplistic platformer with the addition of a springy tail that lets you jump higher, your enemy eating buddy Pec, and a magic mirror that makes you immune to attacks for a few seconds (for some reason). The controls feel "off"; its hard to explain in words, but Ardy feels too slippery for my liking and too speedy for a game that seemingly doesn't want you to go fast more often than not. That issue blends in with the level design; the game is a breeze up until the pyramid after which random difficulty spikes crop up, namely with the platforming, which combined with the controls makes for an unnecessarily annoying time. Not to mention what appears to be collision detection issues that really ruin vital jumps and attacks. Bosses are similar where they're generally easy (and easy to cheese as well) but the difficulty really amps up with the lengthy final boss fight. All of it becomes a tad more frustrating knowing you only really have two hitpoints (and Pec acts as your first hitpoint, so losing him also makes dealing with enemies more annoying.)
Majority of the levels are kind of samey. The platforming in most of them is generally similar that the only things that can really make a level stand out are its music or a specific set piece. I would say the looks too, but the colour palettes of levels seem to share or have similar colours and tones, which blends them too much in my mind at least. The levels that do stand out most either look more visually interesting or have a particular gimmick to them; the latter part mostly ends up being prominent in later levels though, so the distribution definitely feels pretty unequal.
The gimmicks are really hit or miss, and this extends to both levels and bosses. Some levels like the underground passage are cool cuz of the puzzle element to them or having more interesting platforming, others feel more bullshitty or made worse by the controls and/or collision detection issues e.g. the one throne room section where you have to platform on arrows, god it sucks. Bosses' gimmicks suffer in that they're either easy to exploit or get the boss stuck in a loop, the only exception being the final boss whose 2nd phase has an annoying gimmick instead. The one notable missed potential is with Pec because two of the notable gimmicks grant him an ability important for progression, but there's only really 3 instances of this happening and with only 2 forms. These tended to be the most fun parts for me, so its a shame they didn't utilize Pec more like this.
That's really it, I guess. I'd go more in depth on individual levels but again they're not distinct enough, I'd be just repeating points. I will say my favourite levels were the one section in Throne Room with red Pec, Underground Passage and Catry's Tree Fortress for their music and progression, and Eaten where you explore the creepy and nauseating insides of a monster.
Overall, I don't know if I'd recommend Ardy unless you're curious. I like it, but its also just perfectly "ok". It's a quick playthrough at least.
If the "To be Continued" indicates anything, there were probably plans for a sequel that fell through. Which is unfortunate, because I feel like a sequel really would have ironed out the kinks this game had and be a smoother experience. Alas, it was not to be.
Getting the best parts out of the way first, the presentation of the game is pretty cool. The only bit of dialogue is before the first real level of the game, explaining the purpose of the rainbow gems, after which its entirely conveyed through actions and expressions. The character sprite work here is good, everyone expressing a clear emotion in response to a situation or in an effort to give an idea of their personality, ultimately conveying a decent story. Cutscenes also often seamlessly transition to and from gameplay.
The music is perhaps my favourite part of the game. Its just sooo good. They all fit their respective moments and locations and really lend themselves well to enhancing the game's adventurous, long journey vibe. Hard to pick a fave track, its all just really memorable for me.
The gameplay is the majority of what makes up Ardy Lightfoot and unfortunately is also one of its weakest points. Its a simplistic platformer with the addition of a springy tail that lets you jump higher, your enemy eating buddy Pec, and a magic mirror that makes you immune to attacks for a few seconds (for some reason). The controls feel "off"; its hard to explain in words, but Ardy feels too slippery for my liking and too speedy for a game that seemingly doesn't want you to go fast more often than not. That issue blends in with the level design; the game is a breeze up until the pyramid after which random difficulty spikes crop up, namely with the platforming, which combined with the controls makes for an unnecessarily annoying time. Not to mention what appears to be collision detection issues that really ruin vital jumps and attacks. Bosses are similar where they're generally easy (and easy to cheese as well) but the difficulty really amps up with the lengthy final boss fight. All of it becomes a tad more frustrating knowing you only really have two hitpoints (and Pec acts as your first hitpoint, so losing him also makes dealing with enemies more annoying.)
Majority of the levels are kind of samey. The platforming in most of them is generally similar that the only things that can really make a level stand out are its music or a specific set piece. I would say the looks too, but the colour palettes of levels seem to share or have similar colours and tones, which blends them too much in my mind at least. The levels that do stand out most either look more visually interesting or have a particular gimmick to them; the latter part mostly ends up being prominent in later levels though, so the distribution definitely feels pretty unequal.
The gimmicks are really hit or miss, and this extends to both levels and bosses. Some levels like the underground passage are cool cuz of the puzzle element to them or having more interesting platforming, others feel more bullshitty or made worse by the controls and/or collision detection issues e.g. the one throne room section where you have to platform on arrows, god it sucks. Bosses' gimmicks suffer in that they're either easy to exploit or get the boss stuck in a loop, the only exception being the final boss whose 2nd phase has an annoying gimmick instead. The one notable missed potential is with Pec because two of the notable gimmicks grant him an ability important for progression, but there's only really 3 instances of this happening and with only 2 forms. These tended to be the most fun parts for me, so its a shame they didn't utilize Pec more like this.
That's really it, I guess. I'd go more in depth on individual levels but again they're not distinct enough, I'd be just repeating points. I will say my favourite levels were the one section in Throne Room with red Pec, Underground Passage and Catry's Tree Fortress for their music and progression, and Eaten where you explore the creepy and nauseating insides of a monster.
Overall, I don't know if I'd recommend Ardy unless you're curious. I like it, but its also just perfectly "ok". It's a quick playthrough at least.
If the "To be Continued" indicates anything, there were probably plans for a sequel that fell through. Which is unfortunate, because I feel like a sequel really would have ironed out the kinks this game had and be a smoother experience. Alas, it was not to be.
Yet another stop on my never-ending journey to complete every animal themed platformer in existence.
Ardy Lightfoot is perhaps even less remembered than Bubsy or Aero the Acrobat, and I'm sure that "Titus" logo had something to do with it. Even before they dumped Super Man 64 on us, they weren't exactly running toe to toe with third party publishers like Capcom nor Konami. It stars what I'm assuming be some sort of cat or fox accompanied by Pepe-At-Home (seriously...I bet these guys were fans of Monster World IV) in a quest to retreive the seven Chaos Emeralds-At-Home.
One thing Ardy does exceptionally well compared to other B-tier mascot games is (surprisingly) storytelling. Everything is told through pantomime cutscenes like Sonic 3 and Knuckles, granted these are a bit more extensive. To cap it all off, there's a beautiful (non-interactive) world map showing the characters' progression. The in-game art is also pretty solid, although not mindblowing for 1994.
Unfortunately, the game stumbles where it matters most- gameplay. It does, however, start out strong. You'll be using Ardy's signature tail bounce move to scale vertical sections and tossing your buddy (who also serves as a hit point similar to those weird fuzzy things in Psycho Fox) about to solve puzzles and kill enemies. By the time you reach the pyramid scene, however, the game starts introducing massive difficulty spikes and doesn't organically explain certain mechanics.
One such stage is Beecroft's Stronghold, which introduces security cameras that deploy traps if Ardy is caught. At first, I thought this was a stealth section and that said traps/cameras could be avoided by hiding underneath certain platforms until the camera faces away. Nope- you basically have to run for it every time as the traps will always spring up. There's another section like this in Ancient Pyramid, where you would think there's a way to avoid a beam of light that triggers an avalanche of randomly generated spikes. Nope- you just have to deal with it and hope you don't take a hit.
Underground Passage redeems things a bit and sees you powering-up your buddy so that he can chomp through otherwise indestructible blocks. You'll also be looking for switches to pull in order raise the water level and make your way out of the scene. It made me wonder why more levels couldn't have this sort of pacing and sense of exploration, honestly.
The last few stages focus on scaling a tower and are ungodly annoying due to the iffy collision detection. Using a bunch of spears to make your way up would've been an alright idea if Ardy's lust for clipping through them wasn't so high.
Then there's a long autoscroller where you're assaulted by a bunch of electric spears. While you could try to memorize where they come from and what you need to jump, duck or tail-bounce over...there's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. By holding up, Ardy can pull out a mirror which (for whatever reason) shields him from attacks for a decent period of time. The catch is that it's stationary, has a brief window before it triggers and he'll eventually put it away regardless of if you let go of up or not. Considering this section is long as hell, you only get one hitpoint via Pec (the aforementioned buddy) and no checkpoints here- I opted to cheese it by timing my mirror shields properly.
While the game is tough (bordering on unforgiving in the late game), it does have enough concessions. You have unlimited continues, many of the scenes are fairly short, and there's often a ton of stars (this game's coins) or a 1-up around the difficult sections. In addition, if you lose Pec, it's often not long before you find him waiting in a chest nearby. It doesn't fix that some levels are simply miserable to get through, but at least you'll never lose much progress at any point.
Overall, Ardy is worth a once-over if you're willing to adjust to its crap factor and have already played the better platformers on the SNES. Slightly better than Bubsy, but a far cry from the likes of Sparkster.
Ardy Lightfoot is perhaps even less remembered than Bubsy or Aero the Acrobat, and I'm sure that "Titus" logo had something to do with it. Even before they dumped Super Man 64 on us, they weren't exactly running toe to toe with third party publishers like Capcom nor Konami. It stars what I'm assuming be some sort of cat or fox accompanied by Pepe-At-Home (seriously...I bet these guys were fans of Monster World IV) in a quest to retreive the seven Chaos Emeralds-At-Home.
One thing Ardy does exceptionally well compared to other B-tier mascot games is (surprisingly) storytelling. Everything is told through pantomime cutscenes like Sonic 3 and Knuckles, granted these are a bit more extensive. To cap it all off, there's a beautiful (non-interactive) world map showing the characters' progression. The in-game art is also pretty solid, although not mindblowing for 1994.
Unfortunately, the game stumbles where it matters most- gameplay. It does, however, start out strong. You'll be using Ardy's signature tail bounce move to scale vertical sections and tossing your buddy (who also serves as a hit point similar to those weird fuzzy things in Psycho Fox) about to solve puzzles and kill enemies. By the time you reach the pyramid scene, however, the game starts introducing massive difficulty spikes and doesn't organically explain certain mechanics.
One such stage is Beecroft's Stronghold, which introduces security cameras that deploy traps if Ardy is caught. At first, I thought this was a stealth section and that said traps/cameras could be avoided by hiding underneath certain platforms until the camera faces away. Nope- you basically have to run for it every time as the traps will always spring up. There's another section like this in Ancient Pyramid, where you would think there's a way to avoid a beam of light that triggers an avalanche of randomly generated spikes. Nope- you just have to deal with it and hope you don't take a hit.
Underground Passage redeems things a bit and sees you powering-up your buddy so that he can chomp through otherwise indestructible blocks. You'll also be looking for switches to pull in order raise the water level and make your way out of the scene. It made me wonder why more levels couldn't have this sort of pacing and sense of exploration, honestly.
The last few stages focus on scaling a tower and are ungodly annoying due to the iffy collision detection. Using a bunch of spears to make your way up would've been an alright idea if Ardy's lust for clipping through them wasn't so high.
Then there's a long autoscroller where you're assaulted by a bunch of electric spears. While you could try to memorize where they come from and what you need to jump, duck or tail-bounce over...there's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. By holding up, Ardy can pull out a mirror which (for whatever reason) shields him from attacks for a decent period of time. The catch is that it's stationary, has a brief window before it triggers and he'll eventually put it away regardless of if you let go of up or not. Considering this section is long as hell, you only get one hitpoint via Pec (the aforementioned buddy) and no checkpoints here- I opted to cheese it by timing my mirror shields properly.
While the game is tough (bordering on unforgiving in the late game), it does have enough concessions. You have unlimited continues, many of the scenes are fairly short, and there's often a ton of stars (this game's coins) or a 1-up around the difficult sections. In addition, if you lose Pec, it's often not long before you find him waiting in a chest nearby. It doesn't fix that some levels are simply miserable to get through, but at least you'll never lose much progress at any point.
Overall, Ardy is worth a once-over if you're willing to adjust to its crap factor and have already played the better platformers on the SNES. Slightly better than Bubsy, but a far cry from the likes of Sparkster.
Nada mal, é um jogo legalzinho de plataforma.
Ele tem seus méritos como alguns efeitos visuais legais e a historia sendo contada de forma cinemática.
Tirando isso, ele é um plataforma comum sem nada de mais.
A movimentação do personagem é muito estranha, não gosto do jeito que ele adquire velocidade.
Fora algumas fases com diversos pulos cegos e a dificuldade desproporcional do jogo no final.
Ele tem seus méritos como alguns efeitos visuais legais e a historia sendo contada de forma cinemática.
Tirando isso, ele é um plataforma comum sem nada de mais.
A movimentação do personagem é muito estranha, não gosto do jeito que ele adquire velocidade.
Fora algumas fases com diversos pulos cegos e a dificuldade desproporcional do jogo no final.
Not a bad game but I got stuck on a boss and don't feel the need to finish this one. The bounce jump got kind of annoying at some points but overall not a bad time
A solid platformer with average controls and music. The level design helps make it stand out a little bit in the snes library but still is fairly average. Cannot hold a candle to the snes greats, but is worth an afternoon playthrough.