This is not the swearing, substance abusing and violent little squirrel we all know from the N64, however, as achievements in retroarch noted, they had much of the same music in it though. Like The Great Mighty Poo song in 8bit.

This feels like a kid's version of Conker, which is a pretty bad idea imo, but also, it feels like this is a story of the stuff he had to deal with which led to Conker's Bad Fur Day such as how almost everyone he interacts with is an Acorn, including the evil one that kidnaps his girlfriend, a evil black squirrel that ruins your name violent plants that what to eat you and all kinds of villains who want to pick on this poor squirrel who just wanted to enjoy his birthday with his girlfriend. You even have to recollect all of your presents! It's one thing to steal the gifts, but to scatter them all over the place? That's just a different level of petty evil.

The style of gameplay is similar to Zelda in the perspective with some mild platforming which makes things annoying when you don't have a weapon until, after speaking to the Acorns, you go to the windmill to get yourself a slingshot. From this you progress to different worlds but obtaining different keys, having a semi-open world kind of vibe to it, though that's mostly to hide the gifts all over the place.

This game was clearly aimed at little kids and it feels like it, but in the same way of insulting young minds by having a very flimsy story to explain the events and motivate the player. In regards to gameplay, it's still solid so I can't say it's a terrible game in that way, but it is pretty boring and certain mini-games are non-optional and I was stuck for sooo long with one where I had to get a boat part, which you need to make a boat and race against your doppelganger! It took me way too long to finish this game and it shows in the video below, however, it still wasn't my worst experience of Cringetober. It was the last official game I had planned for Cringetober, however, I did add two more that'll be coming out soon which I added to Cringetober retroactively. Fallout 76 and Overwatch 2. Games I dislike for personal reasons.

Gameplay/Stream

The game starts out very rough with your only attack being the stomp which is annoyingly difficult to hit with and not be hit by an enemy. Plus you're immediately running into enemies that take 3 hits to kill. Additionally, the game lets you know the Forest Guardian is to the north east. It is actually not as straightforward as that, you need to venture south and make your way back up.

Once you have the slingshot the game is actually a lot more enjoyable. It's still challenging in ways, but not bad. I actually had a good time with Vultureville and its surrounding area. The addition of the scuba mask was neat. Krow's Keep wasn't a bad level either, although it is never explained in-game how to jump multiple tiles. Presumably that was in the manual, so not great, but understandable and I was honestly having a good time and rating at 6/10.

Then you hit the Mako Islands. First up was the coconut shooting game, which was pretty not great, but manageable. The hurdles became plain unfair though. I'm not sure if because I emulated it added time, but who in their right mind thought an alternating, vigorous, button mashing 36 second long minigame was a good idea? If you even slightly slow down, Honker pulls ahead of you. If you are slow to start, Honker is off the screen almost immediately and you've lost. I'm fine with a challenge, and even usually fine with a button masher, but if you aren't registering at full speed immediately, you lose. That's not a challenge, that's bullshit. I had to quit here because my hands couldn't handle the mashing any longer.

I apparently made the right choice because this was not the only race like this on Mako Islands and you cannot leave a level until you have all of its presents. This bumped the game down significantly for me. Button mashing being a requirement to progress through a game is just not good design in my opinion and I have no intention of returning to Pocket Tales now. I honestly can't believe that was a thing for a Game Boy Color game of all things as well.

Pros: A big adventure game for the little handheld, with cute music and fun minigames. Interesting little puzzles and challenges, all in a top-down 2D perspective. Also of course, this is Rare, so it was pretty to look at with its CGI ACM graphics. And another plus, this is actually two games in one! If played on a Game Boy Color, your adventure is different, some mechanics and minigames completely different as well, than if you play it on a regular Game Boy/Super Game Boy. Only bummer, is there's only room for saves for one way of playing at a time. So after you finish it on GB, play it on GBC, good for replay value.

Cons: It's a bit stiff, movement-wise. Some of the areas don't feel really well designed either... but, what did me in the most here, were the minigames on Mako Islands... God, one of them, I think it was a race, had you alternating pressing left and right, or maybe it was A and B, either way, I didn't know what blisters were until playing this game. Literal pain.

What it means to me: This game, was a game my dad bought for my brother and I... but before getting it, he gave us a choice, it was either Conker's Pocket Tales, or the new Star Wars game on N64, which was a more expensive game that was more popular for all the kids at the time... Nah, we're going with Conker, baby!! And never regretted that choice. Fuck Star Wars.

The game has a Game Boy version as well, locked on the same cart in fact, but I played the Game Boy color version.

Mostly notable as a historical novelty and a glimpse into what Conker could've been if Twelve Tales released as expected. Also, shockingly unfun. Despite having literal years of extra development time, there are a lot of little things that feel unfinished, like hit detection, animations, and dialogue. Lots of mean design decisions, like encouraging revisiting areas but not allowing players easy ways of looping more linear stages. Conker actually looks pretty rough here; the Game Boy already struggled to conker the DKC sprites with the Donkey Kong Lands, but very little of the 64-bit character's appeal or even readability translates to the rasterized 8-bit sprites.

There are a few decent ideas, though. Vultureville and the Mako Islands are easy highlights for the whole experience. The Evil Acorn's final gauntlet is a fun idea, as is facing off against Waldorf repeatedly throughout Krow Keep. The mini-games tend to be basic, but they're generally a nice reprieve from the core gameplay loop.