Alright, so a lot of this score is nostalgia, no point in denying that. But I also think this is a surprisingly inspired 3D platformer. One of those licensed games I had access to early on, when I didn't have access to console games. I tended to assume games like this represented a whole genre of video games that existed on the Nintendo 64 and the like. But no - so far as I know, nothing's really tried playing with the systems that define A Bug's Life.
The game's a 3D platformer, but it spices up its own platforming with its seed system. Throughout different levels are seeds, with some embedded into the ground while others are portable. Jumping on a seed grows a plant. By collecting medals, you can change the seed's color and gradually gain access to different and improved seeds with increasingly more powerful applications. You always start with brown mushrooms (yeah yeah I know not a plant, shh), but collecting more brown medals turns this 'shroom into a spinner fan, a dandelion that lets you glide, and finally a high-firing cannon. Alternatively, collecting green medals and changing the seed's color lets you grow increasingly tall sprout ladders. The idea here being that different environmental puzzles are built around different interactions with these seeds, both in terms of what seeds are used and where seeds are placed.
There's a surprising amount of depth to this system, but it never reads as excessive. The levels introduce the different seeds and their interactions slowly enough that they don't overwhelm the player. Keep in mind as well that this is in addition to standard level gimmicks as well as the game's OTHER systems, tied to other collectables and combat. Yes, this game even features an upgradeable weapon system that dovetails with its seed system, and even that comes across as fairly intuitive. I'm particularly impressed by the fourth boss fight, which tells a mechanical joke based around the interplay of its different network of systems (I asked my friends at Designing For to talk about it here). That the game is so confident in itself to attempt and pull off this type of joke is quite the feat!
I'll say that the platforming and movement is good-not-great when it's firing on all cylinders. Flik himself is a perfectly serviceable character to run and jump as, but he's got this startup and end lag on his run that makes some positioning awkward, particularly the few times the game asks the player to clear a bottomless pit (not much of that in this game, thankfully, and one of the upgraded plants helps with these). There's some screwiness with collisions, too. Not much, but enough that you notice it when trying to land on rounded edges or try to figure out the sweet spot on those leaf sprouts.
Also... Flik talks a LOT. You sorta have to get used to repeated voice clips after a fashion. I'm so used to it myself that I find it more funny than anything (Ahhhh, the life of an ant), but I can definitely imagine it getting old after a while if you didn't grow up on it.
But this is still a game of little moments, even around its interlocking moments. There's some genuinely neat spectacle, insofar as that could exist in a 3D platformer of its era. "Level Four: Dandelion Flight" (or "Cliffside"? I never knew how to refer to these levels) isn't much, but that it places so much emphasis on itself, its change of scenery, the next boss, and the newly-introduced Dandelion kinda gives it its own weight. There are a lot of unique set pieces, like the big tree or the rolling can. That butt slide has no reason to exist, but it's fun. Likewise for those bonus levels in the circus tent...
I dunno. Say what you must regarding the quality of Jon Burton's games, but I feel like he always has something fascinating to offer with his design ideas. If you're there for it, there's really something for you to sink your teeth into. Weird as it is to say about A Bug's Life, given its status in retrospect as a fairly forgettable early Pixar movie, but its video game was an easy highlight for me back when these were the only sorts of games I could play. Even now, I keep finding new things to hold my attention. I can't hate something like that.
The game's a 3D platformer, but it spices up its own platforming with its seed system. Throughout different levels are seeds, with some embedded into the ground while others are portable. Jumping on a seed grows a plant. By collecting medals, you can change the seed's color and gradually gain access to different and improved seeds with increasingly more powerful applications. You always start with brown mushrooms (yeah yeah I know not a plant, shh), but collecting more brown medals turns this 'shroom into a spinner fan, a dandelion that lets you glide, and finally a high-firing cannon. Alternatively, collecting green medals and changing the seed's color lets you grow increasingly tall sprout ladders. The idea here being that different environmental puzzles are built around different interactions with these seeds, both in terms of what seeds are used and where seeds are placed.
There's a surprising amount of depth to this system, but it never reads as excessive. The levels introduce the different seeds and their interactions slowly enough that they don't overwhelm the player. Keep in mind as well that this is in addition to standard level gimmicks as well as the game's OTHER systems, tied to other collectables and combat. Yes, this game even features an upgradeable weapon system that dovetails with its seed system, and even that comes across as fairly intuitive. I'm particularly impressed by the fourth boss fight, which tells a mechanical joke based around the interplay of its different network of systems (I asked my friends at Designing For to talk about it here). That the game is so confident in itself to attempt and pull off this type of joke is quite the feat!
I'll say that the platforming and movement is good-not-great when it's firing on all cylinders. Flik himself is a perfectly serviceable character to run and jump as, but he's got this startup and end lag on his run that makes some positioning awkward, particularly the few times the game asks the player to clear a bottomless pit (not much of that in this game, thankfully, and one of the upgraded plants helps with these). There's some screwiness with collisions, too. Not much, but enough that you notice it when trying to land on rounded edges or try to figure out the sweet spot on those leaf sprouts.
Also... Flik talks a LOT. You sorta have to get used to repeated voice clips after a fashion. I'm so used to it myself that I find it more funny than anything (Ahhhh, the life of an ant), but I can definitely imagine it getting old after a while if you didn't grow up on it.
But this is still a game of little moments, even around its interlocking moments. There's some genuinely neat spectacle, insofar as that could exist in a 3D platformer of its era. "Level Four: Dandelion Flight" (or "Cliffside"? I never knew how to refer to these levels) isn't much, but that it places so much emphasis on itself, its change of scenery, the next boss, and the newly-introduced Dandelion kinda gives it its own weight. There are a lot of unique set pieces, like the big tree or the rolling can. That butt slide has no reason to exist, but it's fun. Likewise for those bonus levels in the circus tent...
I dunno. Say what you must regarding the quality of Jon Burton's games, but I feel like he always has something fascinating to offer with his design ideas. If you're there for it, there's really something for you to sink your teeth into. Weird as it is to say about A Bug's Life, given its status in retrospect as a fairly forgettable early Pixar movie, but its video game was an easy highlight for me back when these were the only sorts of games I could play. Even now, I keep finding new things to hold my attention. I can't hate something like that.