 Siiiiiiiiiじゃない. I've talked about this many times before, but when looking for a new game to play, and by new game I really mean an older game that you just haven't heard of, It's just not realistic to expect to find something as good as Megaman X or Earthworm Gym or whatever, to just spring from nowhere, usually you gotta make do with something that falls into the category of perfectly OK even if it's flawed or not particularly challenging or whatever, That's how I would describe a game like Artie Lightfoot. When I say this game is perfectly okay, I'm not calling it a quote-unquote hidden gem. And I'm definitely not saying it's as good as some of the more prominent Super Nintendo platformers, but it's still worth a look because to a lot of people, it's unknown. Maybe because it didn't sell a ton of copies, or it didn't get rented a lot. Or in my particular case, I never even saw this one advertised very much, because I didn't find out about this game until much later on. On the surface, Artie Lightfoot looks paint by numbers. Like one of the gazillion mascot platformers out there, like Aero the Acrobat, or Bubsy, or Rocky Rodent, just to name a few. But I think this one's a little better than those games. You play as Artie, who appears to be a cat of some kind, and you're accompanied by his best friend, Peck, a bird that follows him around. You press the Y button to essentially throw Peck at your enemies, and he gobbles them up. The rest of the controls are about what you'd expect from a game like this, with two exceptions. You can hold the B button to bounce on your tail for a higher jump, and you can press and hold up to hide in the background from enemies. There's 17 levels here, you get four lives, and unlimited continues with the password system. One hit from an enemy, and you lose Peck, although the game gives you plenty of opportunities to find him again. Take another hit without Peck, and you lose a life. And yeah, okay, I admit this is one of those cases where it's hard to pinpoint what exactly it is about this particular game that makes it better than other platformers. It's one of those things that boils down to feel, and that can be difficult to pin down. The main thing that stands out for me is the combination of the controls and the camera. Too many times now, when you play some of these platformers, either the controls are way too sensitive, like in Bubsy, or way too tight, like in Warlock, for example, or the controls will be fine, but sometimes the camera will be all over the place, like how it is in Judge Dread. But in Artie Lightfoot, they get both just right. I guess the word I'm looking for is comfortable. This game is comfort food. When I use that analogy, I mean it in both a good way and kind of a bad way. Yeah, Artie Lightfoot is comfortable to settle into, but that's kind of all it is. There are some interesting settings here, like when you get swallowed up by a monster and you have to traverse its insides to get out, but otherwise, this game is just kind of bland. When I edit these videos, I like to string together as many different settings and environments as possible, but in this one, so many of these look the same. It looks like I'm showing off the same level over and over. There's so much brown and beige and tan and gray that it gets old after a while. The level design also isn't exactly inspired here either. You'd think with a cool little mechanic, like having a bird helper friend at your side would allow you to do some neat things you can't do in other games. And yeah, sometimes the game takes advantage of Peck's presence. But overall, the level design falls kind of flat. It's certainly not bad. The last level where you're upside down is kind of cool and using Peck to dodge these spikes is a fun challenge, but it just seems like they could have done a lot more. If anything, there are certain areas that could have used more polish because there are some difficulty spikes that show up here and there that are really gonna enrage some players. It's nothing too unusual, just stuff like annoying enemy placement and blind jumps, that sort of thing. One thing I really like about Artie Lightfoot is the presentation. Yeah, I know I just ripped down the level design in the settings, but the sprite work here is well done and I really like how the story is told, with the only dialogue being this blurb of text at the beginning of the game. The Sacred Rainbow has shattered into seven pieces and Artie's gotta go find them all before the Evil King Visconti gets to them. But more than that, how the story is told here is great. There are certain sequences throughout the game that seamlessly move from gameplay to a cutscene, like this early boss here where he chases you on a minecart into a cavern before you fight him. There's lots of stuff like that throughout this game and I really like it. The music fits the game perfectly too and I find myself getting a lot of the tunes stuck in my head. I especially love the overhead map music. However, I should point out, if you play the Japanese Super Famicom version of this one, you'll find a few differences, both in the game and the manual. The Japanese manual here is courtesy of RVGfanatic.com and was translated by a gal by the name of Kate and the artwork here is fantastic. There's a link in the description if you want to see more. The Japanese game also has a gruesome boss death where it melts in acid until it's reduced to a pile of bones where in the North American version it just gets conked out and there's other minor little touches here and there throughout the story that are a tad bit different. Anyway, yeah, I enjoy Artie Lightfoot because it gets the basics right, the sprite work is good, the controls are just right and the camera is at the right proportion and it doesn't zip around too quickly. Yeah, it's not always the most interesting game and there's some balance issues that I alluded to earlier but it's still a solid playthrough. The more I think about it, the more this game really could have used a sequel to build onto what this game does well, as well as add a few more things. But as it is, Artie Lightfoot is 16-bit comfort food. Don't go into it expecting too much, just a reasonably comfortable playthrough that I think most people will dig. And I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.