 Sitating That's drunk! Lots and lots of folks are complaining about the random games we're getting on the Nintendo Switch online service. For every Link to the past in Super Metroid, we've got a tough enough and Natsume Championship Wrestling. There's a clear-cut reason for this, at least to me developers of some of the best Super Nintendo games like Capcom, Kenami, and Square, they know they can get more money selling their old stuff in collection or anniversary packages, like we've seen with Castlevania and Mega Man Ex for example, And for games like Earthbound, I'm willing to bet Nintendo feels like they can get more money for it by selling it as part of some kind of mother bundle or even on its own. Really, I just wanted an excuse to say the phrase mother bundle. So that means we're left with games like Prehistoric Man, an average action platformer that has a good number of strengths along with a fair share of flaws. Now, I've never been too crazy about this game. Years ago, I made a video about Super Nintendo caveman platformers, and when I played it then, I thought it was totally forgettable. And even last week, when I took a look at Doomsday Warrior, I described Prehistoric Man as, uh, existing as a video game. Opinions can change though, and nowadays to me, Prehistoric Man falls in the seemingly endless pile of aggressively average Super Nintendo platformers. It's not as good as stuff like Joe and Mac, and it's definitely far, far short of stuff like Donkey Kong Country, but it's right alongside games like Dino City. Four Lives gives you a short life bar to get through 20 levels with 16 continues. I have no idea why it's 16. And no saves or passwords here. You use a club to take out enemies, but there's also a shouting attack you use by pressing the A button, which makes you sound like Jerry Mouse just lit your tail on fire, and it slowly recharges itself as you progress through the game. You can also pick up items, everything from bombs to hand grenades to axes, shields, spears that serve as platforms, and little helper dinosaurs that take out enemies. But this isn't quite a total collect-a-thon, since you can also pick up detrimental stuff that takes away health. But yeah, you do collect a ton of stuff here, when you defeat an enemy you pick up its bones, well, A bone, and you use it as currency to buy stuff at shops you come across. You can purchase an extra continue directions to a secret area, a ticket that lets you skip the rest of the level, and life insurance, where if you lose all your lives and continues, you instead start from the same shop where you bought the insurance, with your lives and health replenished. It's a pretty cool touch you don't normally see in games like this. There's also four bonus worlds that can be reached by picking up the letters to the word bonus, where you, uh, collect points, I guess, whoop-de-doo. In addition to the regular platforming stuff, there's also levels where you're flying a hang glider, bouncing around on a pogo stick, and riding around on a wheel. You also get some neat level gimmicks, like riding the wind as you jump around inside this tree. The thing is, the controls for these gimmicks and vehicles aren't very good, and take a lot of getting used to. Maybe that's why they give you 16 frickin' continues. Still, this is one of those games where you can clearly tell there was a bunch of effort put in. The music fits the game really well, the sprite animation is great, and while the settings may be exactly what you'd expect from a game like this, they still look great. And these boss fights are frickin' awesome. But that brings me to the game's flaws. This game can get way too cute sometimes, like this lighting effect level where you can't see anything. This is especially annoying considering you have to use a melee weapon, like your club, so you just have to bump into stuff, swing wildly, and hope you don't die. The melee weapon in general is always a hard balance to get in a platform, because it's so easy to take damage. You gotta get just close enough to an enemy without letting them hit you. And that's a hell of a lot easier said than done. But at least the game is a little bit more forgiving when it comes to hitting enemies, and it lets you bounce on top of them, and spring off of them in some cases. But the biggest hindrance for me for this game is the camera. This is the reason why I've never been able to really dig this game. The camera stays locked onto your character, and it jolts around so suddenly, that it makes your eyes feel like they're spinning in your skull. Now, I've learned over the years that this is kind of a subjective thing, that some people aren't really bothered by stuff like this one bit, so maybe I'm just easily prone to motion sickness or something. Still, I found it really annoying. I should quickly mention the story since it's pretty amusing. Dirty deeds are afoot. No, not those dirty deeds. Well, actually they might be. Sam the caveman shows up one morning to find out all their tribe's food was stolen, and hey, check it out, all the characters talk like they do in the original Star Fox. So the goal here is to pick up as many bones as you can, as you make your way to the place with an endless number of bones, the dinosaur graveyard, where dinosaurs go to die. Geez, anti-dinosaur much? But yeah, along the way you'll run into this old guy again for some conveniently placed cut scenes, along with the aforementioned shopkeeper, this dude with the sweet cowboy hat, this scientist guy, and who is that? Anna Nicole Smith? Well, she is the old guy's wife, I mean daughter. I should also mention quickly that this game is part of the prehistoric series developed for the Europe PC scene in the early 90s by Titus, yes that Titus, this is probably the best game they ever did, not that that means a whole lot, but the Super Nintendo Edition doesn't appear to be a remake or a port or anything, it's its own deal. This game did receive Game Boy Advance and DSI ports, but they have their own set of issues inherent to their respective hardware. The SNES game appears to be the best of that bunch. So yeah, prehistoric man does have a lot going for it, but it's got a lot going against it too. I admit it's better than the generic caveman platformer I've made it out as over the years, but the imbalance between your melee weapon and enemies, along with the annoying camera, make this one hard to revisit for me personally. I think the best endorsement I can give this game is that it's pretty clear the people that made it actually gave a crap. The levels are pretty big with a lot of hidden areas to find, and you'll even get a percentage at the end of each level, so if you're into 100% runs and you're into taking near time to explore, you'll dig this game, you'll get your money's worth. So despite the generic sounding title, prehistoric man does offer a bit of meat on the bone. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thanks for watching!