 S... That's drunk. Just when you think you've seen and heard of every mascot platformer of the 16-bit era, here is Zuul, ninja of the nth dimension, made by British developer Gremlin Games, and yep, this game looked Western enough for ya. As you might expect, it was originally made for Amiga in 1992, before getting ported to all sorts of other computer systems, as well as Genesis, Game Gear, Master System, Game Boy and Super Nintendo. You play as Zuul? No, not that Zuul, unfortunately. And he looks like a cross between Bomberman and that weird alien creature that visits Garfield in that one episode of Garfield in Friends. Anyone? No? Alright. You get eight lives, each with a health meter, and three continues to get through seven worlds, divided up into four levels each, with the fourth level culminating in a boss fight, and there's no saves or passwords here. What's weird is that this game's default settings are backwards. It's B to shoot, and Y to jump, which is just awful. But thankfully, you can switch it to how it's supposed to be in the options. There's also the R button to do a flip, and L to spin, and that's it. That's all you get. The controls are really loose. It's kind of jarring. In fact, that's the game's biggest flaw, really. It's like it can't decide if it wants to be a regular old hop-and-bop platformer, or a Sonic-style, Twitch control kind of a thing. I will say, once you get to know some of the level layouts, it can be kind of fun to just zip around and wall jump and flip off of stuff and bounce around and all that. It's just that the levels are designed to only have a couple sections here and there where you're allowed to do that. Then it's back to the drudgery of dealing with these utterly generic enemies, where they just kind of sit there and get in your way and not really do anything. In fact, you'll probably find yourself flailing out of control more often than not before you have to deal with them. To clear each level, you gotta collect... stuff, I guess, until the number in the lower left reaches zero, then the arrow points you to the exit. There's quite a bit of platforming in this game, since each level is pretty big, so you're gonna end up doing the jump spin more often than not. Why didn't they just make this the default jump? I don't know, but it's not that hard to just press jump and L at the same time. Still, like I said, the level design is pretty lousy, and relies more and more on cheap insta-death spikes to jack up the difficulty the further you progress. Well, at least each of the seven worlds go beyond the usual themes you're used to seeing in games like this. I mean, yeah, there's a forest and there's a tropical setting, but there's also a candy world, a stereo world, a kid's playroom, an amusement park level, and a tool-themed level. What, does this world last 20 minutes too long? Or does Tim Allen chase you around with projectile grunts? I will say, some of these worlds do have some highlights if you're willing to seek them out, and if you're willing to get past how completely and fully Amiga-ish it looks. I mean, geez Louise, this is the first level of the game, and it's just so friggin' garish and ugly. The Zool sprite itself actually looks cool, but the settings, ugh, it's like I'm looking at a trapper keeper through a kaleidoscope. It's just a mess. But hey, there are hints here and there that prove that the people that put this game together really gave a crap. One telling sign is the manual, which actually has a comic. Yeah, I love stuff like this. In a perfect world, every video game should come with a comic explaining its lore and backstory, even stuff like Ken Griffey Jr. presents Major League Baseball. So Zool, and did I mention he's a ninja gremlin? And he's flying a spaceship on a recon mission through the nth dimension and gets sucked into a powerful vortex that makes his ship crash land into a pile of custard. No really, that's why the game starts out in Candy World. Too bad for Zool, he didn't crash into $240 worth of pudding. Oh yeah. The comic goes on to say that the evil cruel and his henchmen mental block have overtaken this in all sorts of other places. See, because Zool is not just a ninja gremlin, he's also the protector of creative thought and the defender of positive action. Sure, alright. Anyway, one other major positive this game has is the music, which is friggin' awesome. Whoa, where the heck did that come from? That sounds like something out of Super Off-Road. Anyway, yeah, Zool is another one of those games you'd normally roll your eyes at, right when you'd see it, but it's really not that bad. I mean, the only time I really had to roll my eyes was at some of the visuals, and that was just in order to protect my retinas from searing off from all the ridiculous colors. The thing is though, sometimes these generic mascot platformers, yeah, they aren't all that good, but they also aren't all that bad. No, they're not worth going out of your way to play or anything, but they're just barely decent enough that they're worth a shot to see if it's worth your curiosity. Same thing with stuff like Rocky Rodent or Dino City or Mr. Nuts. That stuff is all in the same category as something like Zool for Super Nintendo. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.