I haven’t been keeping up with my video game reviews in a while and I deeply apologize for confusing newcomers on whether this blog is film-exclusive. Whenever I can have the opportunity, I will be doing more indie game, video game and retro game reviews, just in a disorganized moment.
The game that I want to start things back up with happens to be one of my favorite bad games ever made, Konami’s Frogger: The Great Quest for PlayStation 2 & PC. I had to get around on this game eventually as folks out there kept saying how Konami has just recently fallen thanks to what happened between them and industry veteran, Hideo Kojima.
Let me tell ya, after beating this game, I sought the company’s downfall earlier than everyone else, but darn is this game glorious for being so sucky.
This intro (which by the way, does not represent the standard quality of PS2 games back in the day), sets the mood for a crappy heroine trip. Apparently, the game also killed someone. Steve Brodie, who did the voice of Lumpy The Toad you see here, lost to cancer just a couple of month prior to the game’s release.
It’s a devastating fact to know that cancer can take your life at an early age too, even worse to know your last project was this game. Why is Frogger The Great Quest so bad you might ask, looking past the hilariously awful voice-work and randomly terrible writing?
Konami thought “Since Mario made the successful jump to 3D and we’ve got all these cool PlayStation platformers coming out as well, let’s turn a simple game of frog crossing a street into a 3D platformer where Frogger is now an adaptation of The Frog Prince, collecting coins and getting from point a-b, whatever that may be?”. I’m not against the idea per say, but Frogger 3 has some of the worst physics I’ve ever seen in a video game, between jumping, combat, even swimming.
Everything is either slippery or static and if it wasn’t for the game not giving you any punishment upon death, this would be more frustrating than comedic. It’s as if Frogger took too much alcohol and instead of applying physics, like every solid platformer that released before and in the same year, the programmers instead made sure you keep going where you left off, despite dying.
You could very well be killed frequently, from the messy combat, where the hitbox detection is never clear and enemies later contain more health, except they are so dumb to where you can pick them off from higher ground, or shoot spit from a distance, including boss battles, which almost all, including the final, are just standard enemies coming at you slowly, dealing slightly more damage than the others.
Yet, the only present threat is if you’re really wanting to nab every coin and the platforming is fighting you. Honestly, it feels like a pointless meta-incentive to collect coins since they are only purposed for unlocking character bios, so you get the lore behind Frogger: The Great Quest, while there’s absolutely nothing to these characters besides how uniquely stupid they can be.
Frogger wants to make out with a human princess, so he’ll do anything dangerous, go where he might be killed or fall for an obviously evil person’s trap, just so he can get that kiss. There’re boss battles that occur because one large animal desires to eat Frogger, then after you kick their butt, they complement you on doing so and quickly become allies, forgetting about wanting to eat. As I must always say, this game makes things up as it goes along.
Seriously, every supporting character, plot point or antagonist that gets brought up, is forgotten about for the next, with the only thing staying in-tact is Frogger’s obsession to kiss a human lady. Lumpy The Frog, those mobster mosquitos, even that croc boss you’d see at the screenshot above, disappears after one to a couple of levels. Halfway through the game, we even detour the main quest for a Frankenstein story, so we can add …variety?
Okay, so there’s an array of locations you’ll head to, with new things to look at in every level in its ugly-looking presentation, for PS2 standards. You’ll get to a level where there are cows that’ll twirl its head around like a wind-up toy. My question is what? why? and WTF? These cows don’t serve any narrative or gameplay purpose other than moving one to reach a door.
Also, what are cows doing in a mushroom forest or ancient cave? Things appear because “what the heck?” and to be frank, it’s amazing at how crazy it gets. If I have to say which levels go together, I honestly have no idea since they’re all not connected to each other. It wouldn’t be much of a deal if there wasn’t so much dialogue trying to step up something. It’s an embarrassing example of writers block, seeing these levels not fit with each other.
I’d like to pull back and say this game is for little kids, except there’s mild language and creepy animations. You can make a horror game out of being lazy with your animations, on top of comedy. We go to the Frankenstein level where an evil doctor wants to take Frogger’s legs, and it becomes a boss battle where you’ve got three enemies slowly walking towards you, not programmed to follow you up the ladder, where most of the objectives are located.
You don’t have sound effects on walking, so it gets weird seeing three ugly-looking characters sliding their way towards you. All things said, the bad animations, terrible writing and cheesy voice acting increases the entertainment value by tenfold, only if you are a fan of fun-bad experiences.
Frogger: The Great Quest is so lazy that it’s funny. The ending rivals that of The Dark Universe by the way it left everything off as a cliffhanger, hoping for a sequel that never happened. After this game, the following Froggers would get rid of everyone who was apart of this and go back to the fundamentals of what this character is best known for.
Honestly, much is deserved of this shift, but it was “Enjoyable” while it lasted.
Pond's Press 