I’ve known about this game for a minute and just avoided it because of the cover art. It didn't really look like my kind of game. What reminded me of this game's existence was seeing a tweet around a week ago that Wild Woody was added to an NSFW kart racing game. I had to do a double take, but it was actually real. I shouldn’t be surprised considering the name of the game, but, like, wow. I consider myself to be a fan of the Sega CD, so I did want to give this game a try.
The controls are some of the worst I’ve seen in the medium. When jumping, Woody stutters when rising and falling, so it ends up feeling like you’re rubber banding in an online game. Woody’s main form of attacking is jumping on enemies, which will play out an animation where he sinks into the enemy while erasing them from the level. There’s been times where I would try jumping on enemies upwards of 5 times in a row and it would still not register! He’s also got this sketch ability where you’ll have to press the pause button, flip through the sketch book to find the ability you want to use, and activate it, which plays out an animation. Admittedly, a cool idea, but badly integrated since you can only use 2 of these before having to get a powerup later in the level. For the most part, these are useless in the sense that they obstruct the flow of the game and are never good enough to where you’d even think of using them instead of just damage boosting through whatever enemy is in front of you. Abilities are mostly some awkward projectile or something that transforms you into something for more jump height and movement speed, all controlling as bad if not worse than your standard form. For example, there’s ones that turn you into a kangaroo and hobby horse.
This game is not good in the level design department either. Wild Woody has the design philosophies of Sonic CD with these large, incoherent mazes I’ve gotten lost in for some embarrassingly long times. Also cluttered with enemy placements that, at times, make taking damage feel unavoidable. It’s so bad you’re better off just damage boosting through everything since you’ll probably take more damage trying to avoid them. The enemies also really like throwing unfair projectiles, which you can’t even avoid at times. It’s evident this game was a rush job, and the stage design really makes that show. I get the vibe that they made the levels and didn’t even try playing through the game because a ton of stages have platforming segments that are way too awkward to perform consistently. In the Mount Olympus stage, there is a part where you literally have to take a leap of faith and hope you land on a small platform instead of falling below the area and having to climb back up again. I haven’t mentioned yet that Woody has an ability where he can erase areas of the map to find secrets and progress through the stage. That’s fine; at the start of the game, they highlight these areas to let you know you can erase them, but past level 1, they never mark them again. So, there are areas I’ve gotten trapped in where you just have to waste time guessing where the erasable floor or wall is. Funnily enough, they also increase the time to do so in later stages if it wasn’t already cryptic enough, because then you’ll have to wait longer to erase things with no prior indication.
First impressions of the music from stage 1 sound bad initially, but make more sense since Ron Thal who did the music, said that he made the soundtrack start off silly and progressively get more intense throughout. So even though the first song sounds like a prog rock cover of a nursery rhyme, it does start to pick up the pace with the later stages. My favorite songs are the space stage theme and this song that went unused due to a presumed programming bug. It's a bit goofy, but the high-tempo drums and the piano make for a pretty kickass boss theme, so it’s sad this song didn’t make it in.
How was this released?! Ristar literally came out earlier in the year, and this was supposed to be the swan-song for the Sega CD? How unfortunate… It’s a shame because I think this game had the potential to be pretty cool. I also think it's hilarious that the platforming mascot shit got so out of hand that they made one for a fucking pencil… At least the soundtrack is good.
The controls are some of the worst I’ve seen in the medium. When jumping, Woody stutters when rising and falling, so it ends up feeling like you’re rubber banding in an online game. Woody’s main form of attacking is jumping on enemies, which will play out an animation where he sinks into the enemy while erasing them from the level. There’s been times where I would try jumping on enemies upwards of 5 times in a row and it would still not register! He’s also got this sketch ability where you’ll have to press the pause button, flip through the sketch book to find the ability you want to use, and activate it, which plays out an animation. Admittedly, a cool idea, but badly integrated since you can only use 2 of these before having to get a powerup later in the level. For the most part, these are useless in the sense that they obstruct the flow of the game and are never good enough to where you’d even think of using them instead of just damage boosting through whatever enemy is in front of you. Abilities are mostly some awkward projectile or something that transforms you into something for more jump height and movement speed, all controlling as bad if not worse than your standard form. For example, there’s ones that turn you into a kangaroo and hobby horse.
This game is not good in the level design department either. Wild Woody has the design philosophies of Sonic CD with these large, incoherent mazes I’ve gotten lost in for some embarrassingly long times. Also cluttered with enemy placements that, at times, make taking damage feel unavoidable. It’s so bad you’re better off just damage boosting through everything since you’ll probably take more damage trying to avoid them. The enemies also really like throwing unfair projectiles, which you can’t even avoid at times. It’s evident this game was a rush job, and the stage design really makes that show. I get the vibe that they made the levels and didn’t even try playing through the game because a ton of stages have platforming segments that are way too awkward to perform consistently. In the Mount Olympus stage, there is a part where you literally have to take a leap of faith and hope you land on a small platform instead of falling below the area and having to climb back up again. I haven’t mentioned yet that Woody has an ability where he can erase areas of the map to find secrets and progress through the stage. That’s fine; at the start of the game, they highlight these areas to let you know you can erase them, but past level 1, they never mark them again. So, there are areas I’ve gotten trapped in where you just have to waste time guessing where the erasable floor or wall is. Funnily enough, they also increase the time to do so in later stages if it wasn’t already cryptic enough, because then you’ll have to wait longer to erase things with no prior indication.
First impressions of the music from stage 1 sound bad initially, but make more sense since Ron Thal who did the music, said that he made the soundtrack start off silly and progressively get more intense throughout. So even though the first song sounds like a prog rock cover of a nursery rhyme, it does start to pick up the pace with the later stages. My favorite songs are the space stage theme and this song that went unused due to a presumed programming bug. It's a bit goofy, but the high-tempo drums and the piano make for a pretty kickass boss theme, so it’s sad this song didn’t make it in.
How was this released?! Ristar literally came out earlier in the year, and this was supposed to be the swan-song for the Sega CD? How unfortunate… It’s a shame because I think this game had the potential to be pretty cool. I also think it's hilarious that the platforming mascot shit got so out of hand that they made one for a fucking pencil… At least the soundtrack is good.
3 Comments
this is facts
kobayo
15 days ago