the first game i ever played
Cute LucasArts-inspired point-and-click set across two interactive ''''episodes''''. It's actually the rarest game in my physical Genny collection, somehow the boxed version goes for gangbusters while the loose cart is relatively cheap - or, was cheap, fuckin', retro game store scammers-
Anyway, my family and I never beat this growing up because point and click games (ESPECIALLY from this era) are absurdly obtuse. You have about a dozen possible interaction options for each object on-screen and you build up an inventory of dozens of seemingly-unrelated objects. Also fights against common sense a lot, like there's this one part where you open a fridge and find a note on it, and game logic would make you assume the note is the one thing you're intended to do with the fridge, but no you also gotta use the 'PUSH' function to move it away and grab a bottle cap behind it. And then THAT bottle cap is combined with a battery and a stright of christmas lights to make a flashlight - like, how is a 6-year-old gonna figure that shit out? Luckily with the magic of Adulthood and Internet Access, I got past the swathe of hurdles like this, beat both mysteries and had a fun laugh.
The tone is very authentic to the classic show, bringing back old gags and such. Shaggy's banter with item descriptions and character conversations gets oddly out-of-character sometimes, but it's always laughably absurd and fun. This one part sticks out to me where you have to get a chef to leave a room, and you do that by feeding antacid to Shaggy to make his stomach rumble, which makes the chef run away to the kitchen to make him food. Fucked up. A lot of effort overall into each of the interaction events, cool animations and forced perspectives and the like.
Of the two episodes, I found the first one lacking. It's a typical 'hotel built on top of a cave with hidden treasure' shtick, it's oddly way harder than the second episode and also not as distinct. A lot of time spent doing mundane walks through samey halls and rooms, inspecting samey shelves and whatnot. You get the majority of the items you need in the hotel, but the cave is a linear path, so if you don't have an item you need, you gotta trek all the way back up to find it. Also they do the 'ooooh the hotel is built on ancient Native American burial grounds and the eeeeevil chieftain is gonna haunt yoooouuuu' bit, yeah that's kinda out-of-touch, booooo. Like obviously, this is Scooby Doo storytelling, it's not a chieftain, it's actually a white old guy cosplaying them for money, it's more appropriate that way, but it doesn't change the fact the hotel owner (and plot victim) built their property on burial grounds??? Bro, like, come on, bro.
Second episode is a lot better - it's a carnival setting, there's more interesting environments to explore, more fun NPC's to interact with, the 'Use X on Y' puzzles are easier to parse since the objects are more distinct from each other, and it being more open-ended makes it easier to solve things at your own pace. Just overall way funnier too, got a riot out of the hammer guy and roller coaster bit. The haunted house music also has a bit of 'Iron Man' snuck into it for some reason?????? But ye, this was the episode we spent way more time on as kids, and it was really satisfying to see it through to the end.
If there were more tooltips for what do to when you get stuck this would be a much bigger recommendation, kinda unplayable without a guide otherwise. And yet, still had a blast going through it, definitely a licensed hidden gem. Totally worth the revisit.
The SNES version is by the Star Fox guys, same name different game type deal. It's a platformer/action thing I think? I'll have to play that sometime too.
Anyway, my family and I never beat this growing up because point and click games (ESPECIALLY from this era) are absurdly obtuse. You have about a dozen possible interaction options for each object on-screen and you build up an inventory of dozens of seemingly-unrelated objects. Also fights against common sense a lot, like there's this one part where you open a fridge and find a note on it, and game logic would make you assume the note is the one thing you're intended to do with the fridge, but no you also gotta use the 'PUSH' function to move it away and grab a bottle cap behind it. And then THAT bottle cap is combined with a battery and a stright of christmas lights to make a flashlight - like, how is a 6-year-old gonna figure that shit out? Luckily with the magic of Adulthood and Internet Access, I got past the swathe of hurdles like this, beat both mysteries and had a fun laugh.
The tone is very authentic to the classic show, bringing back old gags and such. Shaggy's banter with item descriptions and character conversations gets oddly out-of-character sometimes, but it's always laughably absurd and fun. This one part sticks out to me where you have to get a chef to leave a room, and you do that by feeding antacid to Shaggy to make his stomach rumble, which makes the chef run away to the kitchen to make him food. Fucked up. A lot of effort overall into each of the interaction events, cool animations and forced perspectives and the like.
Of the two episodes, I found the first one lacking. It's a typical 'hotel built on top of a cave with hidden treasure' shtick, it's oddly way harder than the second episode and also not as distinct. A lot of time spent doing mundane walks through samey halls and rooms, inspecting samey shelves and whatnot. You get the majority of the items you need in the hotel, but the cave is a linear path, so if you don't have an item you need, you gotta trek all the way back up to find it. Also they do the 'ooooh the hotel is built on ancient Native American burial grounds and the eeeeevil chieftain is gonna haunt yoooouuuu' bit, yeah that's kinda out-of-touch, booooo. Like obviously, this is Scooby Doo storytelling, it's not a chieftain, it's actually a white old guy cosplaying them for money, it's more appropriate that way, but it doesn't change the fact the hotel owner (and plot victim) built their property on burial grounds??? Bro, like, come on, bro.
Second episode is a lot better - it's a carnival setting, there's more interesting environments to explore, more fun NPC's to interact with, the 'Use X on Y' puzzles are easier to parse since the objects are more distinct from each other, and it being more open-ended makes it easier to solve things at your own pace. Just overall way funnier too, got a riot out of the hammer guy and roller coaster bit. The haunted house music also has a bit of 'Iron Man' snuck into it for some reason?????? But ye, this was the episode we spent way more time on as kids, and it was really satisfying to see it through to the end.
If there were more tooltips for what do to when you get stuck this would be a much bigger recommendation, kinda unplayable without a guide otherwise. And yet, still had a blast going through it, definitely a licensed hidden gem. Totally worth the revisit.
The SNES version is by the Star Fox guys, same name different game type deal. It's a platformer/action thing I think? I'll have to play that sometime too.