 ....ahhhhhh that's drunk. Mascot platformers were a thorn in the side of many well-to-do gamers back in the 90s, folks were out there just trying to find something new and innovative to play. Instead, here comes a whole bunch of corporate crap not so transparently trying to create the next Sonic the Hedgehog. Whether it was Rocky the Rodent, or Bubsy the Cat, or Brunki the Brunkeosaurus, or Frantic Flee, or Sylvester Stallone. Arrow the Acrobat occupies a unique place among all those titles, where the games really aren't that bad, but they're not that good either. They fall in that category of begrudging rental. Like, say, if Mega Man X or Turtles in Time or Super Castlevania IV were all checked out, you gotta settle for Arrow the Acrobat or Arrow the Acrobat 2. I do have to mention quickly, though, that I'll be talking about the spin-off game, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel in this video as well, and that game is surprisingly pretty good, so stay tuned for that one. But to start with, Arrow the Acrobat, or sorry, Arrow the Acrobat, this one was made for both Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis back in August of 1993, with a Game Boy Advance port coming in 2002 which added a battery save. It was developed by Iguana Entertainment, who I'm sure many of you recognize from this logo, which you see at the beginning of NBA Jam. They mostly stuck with sports games also making the NFL Quarterback Club series, and this is pretty much their only foray into platforming in this era, and it's extremely average. As a whole, it's not particularly noteworthy. I mean, it's one of those games where you just watch two minutes of footage and you get the gist of the entire game. It's an action platformer, and Arrow's main attack is doing this diagonal corkscrew attack that you can either do upward or downward, and you can use it as a makeshift double jump, which is handy, and there's also projectiles that you come across that you can toss at enemies. You get six lives and three continues to get through four worlds, split up into five stages each with no battery saver password, and each stage has a specific task you need to complete in order to get to the next level. Sometimes it's jumping through hoops, sometimes it's collecting stars, sometimes it's stepping on these platforms with stars on them. Arrow is actually kind of fun to control. The jump and attack are both quick and responsive. It's just that the level design isn't all that interesting. Everything is very paint by numbers, and there aren't very many additional mechanics that add to anything. Like, for example, in Mario World, you'll occasionally go down a pipe and the pipe launches you forward into a swarm of enemies, or in Sparkster, where you fight these fun little mini bosses like this. Or even in a game like Artie Lightfoot, where you've got a partner who helps you out, or really just in any other action platformer where you have more stuff to do. I guess that's my main point. Arrow the Acrobat just doesn't give you enough to do. The tasks this game gives you just aren't particularly engaging, and while Arrow controls pretty well, he doesn't really do much other than the box standard abilities you start out with. In addition to all that, this game really gets hard. It's one of those playthroughs where after you reach a certain point, you start to wonder if this is really worth it. There are so many spikes and traps that are put in the exact perfect places for you to take damage and die. Usually when a game like this is tested, you tend to move these traps over a little bit to make the game a tiny bit more player-friendly, and to give you a chance to dodge or at least prepare for what's coming. But in Arrow the Acrobat, the frustration adds up quickly, and again, I can't help but think that they should have given Arrow some more abilities or at least provide some better level design that matches Arrow's existing abilities. Both of those things would have gone a long way toward making this one more fun. I will say, in Defense of Arrow the Acrobat, they do throw in some gimmicks much later in the playthrough. There's this roller coaster level, you're riding around in elevators, and there's this Mode 7 skydiving level. But they're pretty short and pretty limited, and plus, I've always really disliked when someone tries to recommend something by saying, oh, it gets really good after you play it for 30 minutes. Being bored for the first 30 or 40 minutes of frustrating gameplay before the game gets marginally more interesting should not be considered a recommendation. There are much better ways to spend your time, but if you're interested in more Arrow the Acrobat, then there's... Arrow the Acrobat 2, which came out in November of 1994, and it was again made by Iguana Entertainment for both Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Now, as a sequel, this game is a pretty good follow-up to the original since it builds on everything the first game established and tweaked a few things, like the ability to do your corkscrew attack straight down into enemies and a slide to help you get through certain passages. The two biggest improvements, however, are the ability to bounce off multiple enemies in sequence with your corkscrew attack, which is actually fun to do, and helps give the game a bit of an addictive quality. The other big thing is the level design. Gone is the structure of having to complete objectives to get to the exit. Arrow the Acrobat 2 is more linear. The levels are simple point A to point B, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The graphics and sound are also much better. The first game was just downright ugly at times, but the sequel has some nice backgrounds and settings while the sprites are touched up a bit, which helps give the game a bit more polish. Those are all solid improvements on the original game, but unfortunately, that's like saying the game found a new way to be generic. I appreciate that the dev team clearly tried here. I mean, there's even a story here with cutscenes. You have to rescue BATASHA, since she's been made a slave by the evil Edgar Ektor, the same villain from the first game, so they're clearly trying to build some kind of lore here. And it worked to some extent, since this series got a spin-off game that I'll get to in a bit. But yeah, Arrow the Acrobat 2 isn't bad, not by any stretch, but it's pretty dang boring. The game runs a bit faster, is much more player-friendly, and it's not as needlessly frustrating as its predecessor, but it has the same made problem as the original, in that it's just really, really bland. I feel like I've played about a thousand games exactly like this, and most of them were more interesting. The corkscrew attack is nice, and it's fun to bounce off a bunch of enemies in a row, but other than that, there's just not much here. Then for some reason, the game Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel arrives, again made by Iguana and again made for Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, and it was made right around the same time Arrow the Acrobat 2 came out. Zero was Arrow's arch-nemesis in the first two games, not the final boss, but just a henchman who's a pain in your side, kind of like the mascot-platformer version of the tall-blonde henchman from Die Hard. It's pretty weird to see this character from this series get his own spin-off game, but here we are, and guess what? This game is actually pretty decent. You get a health meter and four lives with unlimited continues to get through five worlds split up into two or three stages each. No saves or passwords here, so this can be a pretty long playthrough, well over an hour, but you're much better off putting time into this one than the other two games I've talked about. The main thing is that Zero is just more fun to control. He can double jump, throw ninja stars, do a swooping dive when you press B while holding down in midair, and if you gather enough momentum, you can fly by pressing A in midair, but most importantly, the level design complements these abilities, providing all sorts of springboards you can leap off of so you can fly around. It reminds me a tiny little bit of Rocket Knight Adventures. I will say, though, the controls do feel a bit loose here. Zero has some oddball momentum that starts and stops whenever you're running around, and that can take a bit to get used to. Flying can be weird, too. Zero will start out flying straight down to do a crash attack into the ground, but if you're able to build up enough speed, either from running or from a springboard, you can press A again, and Zero will straighten out. If you have enough momentum, you can press A a third time and he'll turn back upward. It's pretty cool, although it's a bit weird to get used to. And yeah, this is one of those games where you're gonna take a lot of damage, so don't bother killing everything you see. Just keep going forward. You're gonna get hit a bunch, but your health meter can usually absorb at least four or five hits, and there's plenty of health replenishments around. And hey, if you're into taking your time and exploring to find extra stuff, the double jump and flying mechanic work well with that approach, and there's lots to find. So yeah, to wrap this up, I've been doing this channel project thing for over nine years now, and in that time, I don't think I've had a single person ask me to do a video on any of the Arrow the Acrobat games, and there's a reason for that, especially for the first two games. They just aren't memorable, to the point of being painfully generic. Arrow the Acrobat 1 and 2 make me think of that old cliche, they know the words, but not the music. Those two games know how to be perfectly competent platformers, but they don't hook you, they're lacking in charm, and they're lacking in something that makes them distinct. The default attack of corkscrewing into enemies is a start, but it's like the folks who made those games just said, well, that's good enough for government work, I suppose. Zero, the Kamikaze Squirrel, on the other hand, is a solid playthrough. It just flows better start to finish, and it's fun once you get the hang of the controls, and you get to know the level design a little bit. That's really the only one of these three games I'd recommend playing today. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.