One of my most beloved games from when I was a kid, that on every replay I find something new that I don't like about it. It was animated by a virulent transphobe with nasty fucking nails and Tommy Tallarico regularly lies about having composed the music for it when he absolutely did not. Nice stuff!!

I want to preface it right now, on the Genesis this is a 2 STAR GAME. The PC/Sega CD versions I think are 3 stars for many technical reasons and for having the very fun Big Bruty level.

The Genesis version though kind of SUCKS. It's not because EWJ is already an incredibly uneven game, but because the whip has the most particular hitbox you could imagine, requiring precision that really feels unnecessarily strict. The helicopter head never ever feels like it works right, and makes the Use Your Head portion of the final level nearly fucking impossible. The Genesis version plays so bad that I can see why it being readily available on Switch, along with its insipid creator has lead to people turning HARD on Jim.

The Sega CD version still doesn't play perfect, because at its heart Earthworm Jim is still kind of a mess, but I still think it's light years better than Earthworm Jim 2, which is a game that experiments with every level being the bad level. Tube Race and Snot a Problem are the only levels here that I think are just so shit that it brings the experience down. I think For Pete's Sake is pretty fun actually :)

Levels that are pure platforming challenges are usually pretty fun, with a huge asterisk, as sometimes Jim just doesn't control great or his sprite feels a little bit bigger than it needs to be, but I still think New Junk City, Level 5, and Buttville provide good enough platforming challenges. I am a biased observer though, as I really don't care about most 2D games and would rather playing Earthworm Jim than any boring ass Mega Man game, so take my words with a grain of salt.

The music is great though! It was absolutely not composed by Tallarico, despite his insistence it was. I doubt the Special Edition music was even done by him, even the guitars, as he pretty infamously plays to a backing track with VGL. Can he even play guitar? No one knows! Notice how EWJ2 is credited to him and half of it is music he didn't even compose? Weird, huh. I did listen to the music here a TON growing up, and still think it's brilliant stuff.

What this game is rightfully famous for is the animation, character design, all of it being REALLY great looking. The various Jim idle animations, the way Evil the Cat's gun knocks him back during his boss fight, and, even though it stinks to play, the animations in Snot a Problem are so beautifully done. It's a shame the most annoying piece of shit was behind these!

This game is so hard to go back to today for reasons that honestly don't have much to do with the actual game: it's an eccentric 90s platformer, not much to write home about. The fact that it's attached to the hip to the legacies of the most irritating fucking losers is really brutal. Still worth a shot on the Sega CD or PC, as the Genesis version is too clunky to even recommend casually.

You know what I am a fan of? When things get WEIRD. And I’m not talking about when things get kinda mystical or fantastical, but more so when something goes out of its way to make you say “what the fuck”, but only in the best way possible. Of course, there have been plenty of games, movies, or what have you that follow typical formulas we have all seen time and time again, and we remain fans of said formulas despite how stale they can get. On the other side of the fence, though, you then get the weird stuff, the products that take what you typically expect from a setting or a scenario, twist it on its head, add a bunch of nonsense for the sake of it, and make something so utterly bizarre that you can’t help but love it and all of its strange, awkward beauty. One of the best examples of this when it comes to video games, especially those from the mid 90s, can be found with Earthworm Jim.

I have little to no experience with the Earthworm Jim franchise entirely, with the only little experience I had with the series being with when I decided to purchase myself a copy of the original game on the SNES, I played it for about 10 minutes, and then stopped to go do something else… for over half a decade. I have always wanted to give it a full shot though, not only because of how it has had quite a few titles at this point, along with a full animated series, but also because I just wanted to see if it was as weird and bizarre as many say it is. So, I decided to give the Genesis version of the game a shot on the NSO, and now that I have fully played through it, I can confirm that yes, the game is really fucking weird, but it is also really fucking good as well. There are some parts and design choices that do get on my nerves, which I can imagine get on others’ nerves as well, but it still managed to be fun, challenging, and weird enough for me to say that I had a great time with it.

The story is simple, yet appropriately bizarre for a game like this at the time, where a random earthworm named Jim is just doing… worm things one day, when all of a sudden, a super suit falls from the sky and lands straight on him, causing him to mutate and inhabit the suit like a regular person, gaining newfound powers and abilities. Because of this though, he then finds that he is being hunted down by several villainous fiends who wish to get their hands on the suit, so it is up to him to venture off into the dangerous galaxy he inhabits, defeat the many foes in his way, and complete his quest of meeting the fairest maiden in the land, Princess What’s-Her-Name. It is utterly strange and beyond stupid, which means it fits perfectly for the kind of game this is, and I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.

The graphics are pretty great, having plenty of great environments to venture through and admire, but they really shine when it comes to all of the characters, especially with Jim himself, who all have animations that looks like it came right out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and it holds up wonderfully after almost 30 years, the music is pretty great, having plenty of great tunes to listen to while blasting apart whatever alien or chicken comes your way, with several tracks like this one sticking with me after my initial playthrough, and the gameplay/control is pretty simple for the time, but it mixes things up with the many different types of challenges and gameplay segments you will run into, which makes things varied and exciting for most of the entire game.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Jim, go through many different levels that range from a huge-ass junkyard to the depths of Hell, each one changing things up to keep you on your toes, defeat plenty of strange enemies that you will encounter along the way using either your entire body as a whip or your trusty blaster that can be fired in eight different directions, gather plenty of ammo for your blaster, health pickups, and extra lives to assist you throughout your journey, and take on plenty of different bosses that will not only test your dodging and shooting skills, but will also change things up to where you will need to hit them in other ways that don’t involve shooting and whipping, which are always interesting to see. A good amount of it is standard for the genre, but the game will make sure to throw plenty of things at you to remind you that it isn’t just your typical old-school platformer, and it ends up being much more lovable and interesting as a result, making it a great time to play through.

I have mentioned it many times already at this point, but it bears repeating here: this game is WEIRD. There are so many strange, odd, and juvenile things that happen in this game, giving the game so much personality to the point where I could never imagine this series without some of the random stuff it pulls out of its ass, and I love it for that. For example, there is one part in the beginning of the game where, in order to progress through the level, you have to launch a cow into space, with you being given a Cow Launched prompt as a result of doing so. Why did you have to do that? I don’t know! You just do it for the sake of it, and isn’t that all you really need? Not to mention, this leads to a pretty funny scene at the end of the game that I won’t spoil here, along with you being able to see the cow flying across the background at certain points in the levels, which is pretty funny to see as well. This weirdness also extends to some of the bosses that you fight as well, such as a chicken operating a death machine, some random guy that barfs dead fish at you, and a booger monster (not that booger monster), each being as weird as they sound, and being pretty fun to fight.

Not only that, but the game also manages to change things up when it comes to the primary gameplay as well, making things interesting and more enjoyable as the game continues. In-between most of the levels, you have to race this bird guy towards the end, while also collecting plenty of orbs, shields, and boosts along the way, and while these sections can get pretty hard, especially towards the end, these are a nice change of pace after you make it past the main levels. In addition, there are some other gameplay changes that can be found here as well, such as one where you are bungee-jumping while fighting that booger monster I mentioned earlier, one where you are navigating through an underwater maze using a submarine, and several instances where you are actually separated from your suit, and you need to get through several obstacles so that you can get back in the suit, which are neat to see.

With all that in mind, none of the weird things and fun gameplay changes can prepare you for what is undeniably one of the biggest things holding this game back: this game is REALLY FUCKING HARD. From the start of the game, you will have to deal with plenty of different challenges that aren’t exactly easy, coupled with plenty of enemies and obstacles placed throughout the stages, and while a lot of it is doable, there are also plenty of parts in the game that are brutal to get through. Don’t even get me started on the final level in the game, Buttville, which has so many different spike traps and instances of bullshit that I don’t see how anyone would be able to beat this without using save states or cheats of some kind.

Then there are those stages that just aren’t really that fun to play through whatsoever, such as the case with For Pete’s Sake, which is just one huge escort mission. Throughout the stage, you will have this purple dog that will be happily walking along the whole way, and you have to make sure he gets through the entire level without falling down any pits. You have to do this by making sure to take care of the many hazards along the way, while also whipping the dog to get him to jump certain gaps at plenty of instances, or even to shoot at him to cause him to stop just in case you are in a tight spot. All of this is much easier said than done, and there were plenty of moments where I could just barely manage to get the dog to another ledge or further along in the stage before they could fall into a pit, turning into a hideous monstrosity and then proceeding to kill you…………….. you know, just like real dogs.

Overall, despite its brutal difficulty and several stages that just aren’t fun at all, this game still managed to be one of the most unique and bizarre games that I have ever played from this era, and I managed to have a great time with it for most of the ride, with there being plenty of great challenges that were pretty satisfying to overcome, and the kind of charm that you just cannot find anywhere else. I would definitely recommend it for those of you who love old-school platformers like this, as well as those who just like weird shit, because if this game doesn’t manage to make you laugh or smile at just how weird and dumb it is, then I don’t know what will. I just wonder how they gonna manage to one-up themselves in the next game, in terms of both quality and weirdness. But hey, for a guy that has a last name that sounds like TenNipple, I’m sure it will be an easy feat for him.

Game #542