Cats might have 9 lives, however you received’t want quite a lot of of them right here.
Felix the Cat is a set of two video games of the identical title initially launched on the NES and Game Boy in 1992 and 1993, respectively. The compilation features a few quality-of-life enhancements that we’ve turn into accustomed to seeing in retro re-releases, together with a single save state, a rewind function, and a CRT filter. There’s additionally an unreleased Famicom model right here (for some motive). While Felix might have been round for 100 years, there’s a motive these two titles haven’t: they provide little in the way in which of distinctive or above-average gameplay. They are almost as barebones as a platformer could be.
The NES sport consists of about 10 worlds, and most of those have 3 separate levels to finish. The ranges are typically fairly quick; those that do have a bit extra size are largely simply repetitive. You’ll come throughout the identical basic enemies for a lot of the sport’s abbreviated runtime, and even the boss fights really feel extra like palette swaps than handcrafted challenges. One feather in Felix’s fur-covered cap is the completely different transformations that he undergoes in sure levels, like these the place he takes to the sky or goes underwater. Collecting Felix tokens, like cash, award hearts that imbue you with new magic units and autos, almost like power-ups in a Mario sport. They usually provide you with projectiles to launch or added maneuverability, but additionally will let you take harm on the cost of dropping right down to the earlier power-up stage. All in all, although, the playthrough continues to be a short and largely forgettable one, and for some motive, my excessive rating didn’t even save after ending the sport.
Felix the Cat on Game Boy is basically the identical expertise however with fewer worlds and levels and fewer of the interstitial content material from the NES unique. All of the transformations are current right here, however what does sadly get added to this moveable iteration is a hearty dose of slowdown, making a few of the jumps and different obstacles extra irritating to navigate. That stated, it is nonetheless sort of spectacular how devoted the sport is when shrunk right down to Game Boy proportions.
While neither a part of the package deal is all that eye-catching, the upbeat soundtrack from the NES sport specifically is sort of nice and enhances the playthrough properly. The sound results, although–just like the one for Felix’s bounce–generally is a little on the grating facet, so I used to be joyful to achieve segments of the sport the place much less leaping was required. There is a neat visible aptitude to the rewind perform that I did respect, however that is one of many few attention-grabbing presentation components.
Felix the Cat might have been a bit extra of a novelty on the ‘90s platforms it arrived on, but time hasn’t been sort to this comedian feline’s pixel-based adventures. Despite starring a cat with a magical bag, these two video games have almost no tips up their sleeves. The addition of the Famicom model yields little or no by way of noticeable gameplay variations, so its inclusion is a little bit of a thriller. I do know the reply, however why couldn’t these two video games have simply been added to NSO as an alternative? What’s extra, the general problem might be markedly gentle for anybody with platforming expertise, and there’s no scarcity of additional lives to earn and power-ups to maintain you from hazard and propel you thru the largely pedestrian stage design. If this 2024 assortment had just a few extra attention-grabbing extras thrown in, it might be price a choose up, however because it stands, that is simply one other black cat you don’t need crossing your path.
