New Year, Same Yokoi Kids! To bring us into 2020 we’ve got… wait, it’s me? I’m picking the game?
Yes’m, I am! We’re playing: Daffy Duck in Fowl Play!
I was talking with a friend about a series of lesser-known fighting games in mid-December, the loosely connected games Galaxy Fight, Waku Waku 7, and Astra Superstars. He mentioned that he likes to play Astra every year around Christmas because it was developed by a small team named Santaclaus. Santaclaus was made up of developers that had worked on the prior two games. The developer sounded familiar to me, possibly because he had mentioned this prior. I looked them up and they are only credited with three actual games: the rest of what they did was ports. Beyond Astra Superstars they made… two Looney Tunes games for Game Boy? Of course, I got up to see if I had them and I did.
I popped in Fowl Play and was immediately impressed. The game has great animation and graphics for a Game Boy game. The gameplay is unique. Daffy’s only attack is dynamite which has a three-second fuse. You can hold your throw so you can time the toss just right. Daffy also has a stomach meter that is constantly draining. Some food just hangs out, but blowing up enemies can sometimes leave behind food as well. Food fills him back up to the top. The game kind of plays like an Adventure Island game in that you have to keep moving forward to eat food, but if you go too fast you’ll inevitably screw up. The difference here is the weapon and the slower pace.
This was released here in 1999, the Game Boy/Game Boy Color’s last gasp of relevance. It’s a black cartridge so it can be played on a standard Game Boy, which is interesting for a game released this late in the system’s life. The whole game is just odd. A weird thing by a weird developer released at a weird time. I hope everyone enjoys it!
Emulate away, but this is still in the 15 dollar range if you want a physical copy. Something tells me this won’t remain that price forever!
HAPS NEW YEAR!
-IF
Yokoi Kids 