 That's drunk. It's time to take a look at another one of those games that was always, always available for rent while stuff like Yoshi's Island and Mortal Kombat 3 were checked out. It's Dino City, or is that dinosity, like ferocity or atrocity, but with dinosaurs. And this kid, I guess? Anyway, this cover was seemingly everywhere. It seriously had Shaq Fu levels of omnipresence at the time, but at least someone occasionally was suckered into renting Shaq Fu. The ever rented Dino City, or at least that's how it seemed to me at the time, so what is this game anyway? Well, to start with, it's a classic case of western cover art misrepresenting what the game is supposed to be. I already showed you the cover, and here's what the game looks like, and meanwhile, here's what the cover of this game in Japan looks like. Where its translated title is Dino Wars Adventures in the Dinosaur Kingdom. Nintendo Power even featured some of the original artwork as well, and it makes the game appear bright, colorful, and engaging, as opposed to the cover North America got, which looks like it's based on a terrible made for video movie starring the kid from Last Action Hero. Oh wait, no, that was pre hysteria. This game is based on Adventures in Dinosaur City, another kid's movie starring dinosaurs. So how does this game play? It's a standard hop and bop platformer where you play as a kid riding a dinosaur. You can choose between two characters, the boy on the left has his dinosaur attack with a punch, and the girl on the right has a projectile. You press A to select between the two, and in my opinion you're way better off picking the girl because the weapon is that much better, the punch kinda sucks. There's six worlds featuring five stages each, and at the end of each world there's a boss fight. No battery save, but there is a password system here. Dino City was developed by Irem, the same company that made the R-type series, and the same folks who made Rocky Rodin, another side scrolling platformer, and that's what Dino City compares most to, especially the feel of your character's range of motion when jumping and moving around. What's interesting though is that Dino City was released in July of 92, and Rocky Rodin came out in July of 93, and Dino City is a much better looking and better sounding game overall, despite being made a year earlier. The thing is though, the level design in Dino City can be problematic. You've got these pillars that just sink into the ground and never come back, you've got these weird slippery slopes, this game just has a wonky rhythm to it. Also so many enemies here seem like they take about a gazillion hits to finish off, and that gets annoying. While it feels like the balance of speed between enemies, moving platforms, and yourself just feels off. Some of the enemy design here kinda sucks too, literally in the case of these snake heads, I mean come on, I wasn't that close, and I still got eaten up. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the jumping or the controls, it's the enemy and level design that just doesn't fit very well. There are some interesting quirks here though, like pressing the R button to get off your dinosaur to explore a bit. Sometimes you have to do this to get past certain obstacles, like here where your dinosaur won't fit, you just press R, walk around and your weight will bring down this skull, and you can move on, just press R again to hop back on. I do kinda wish the game implemented this mechanic more often, kinda like in a game like Cybernator, because I don't feel like they used it enough, but it is nice that it's there. I should also mention that there's two doors at the end of each level, one red and one yellow, with the red one usually being a little more difficult to reach, and it leads to a bonus game where you collect dinosaur eggs, and it's 50 eggs for an extra life. So yeah, Dino City is a flawed platformer, the enemy design can get irritating, the level design can feel a bit messy, like stuff is just thrown together. For example, there's some blind jumps you gotta contend with, that's always fun. But I don't think it's totally irredeemable, it's a good looking game that's got a Joe and Mack vibe to it, it cuts a quick pace, and the boss fights here can be a lot of fun. There's also some thoughtful touches here and there, like the daytime slowly turning into night as you progress, that's cool. I should also point out that if you'd like a more forgiving version of this game, get the Super Famicom version. That one gives you more health and more continues. But as far as Dino City goes, it's one of those games that can be frustrating for the wrong reasons, it does have its qualities, and I'll end this video the same way I ended the Rocky Rodin video. Sometimes a game doesn't have to be this obscure hidden classic, it just needs to be something halfway decent that you haven't heard of before, and sometimes that's good enough. So putting it that way, Dino City is good enough. And I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.