 Dat's drunk. One of the most fun things about this whole retro gaming hobby thing is finding these games with backstories you never knew existed until well after the fact. Take Saber Wolf, or Game Boy Advance for instance. No, not THAT Saber Wolf, although he is tangentically involved. I remember just kinda glazing over this game thinking it was a spinoff of Banjo-Kazooie or something like that, just based on the visuals alone, only to find recently that, nope, this is actually a reboot of a game that Rare made way back in 1984 when they were called Ultimate Play the Game. Geez, that's a terrible name. The original Saber Wolf was made for the ZX, oh I'm sorry, ZX Spectrum, just wanted to get all the Brits fired up. But yeah, you play as Saberman running around collecting stuff through a series of mazes. It's actually a pretty dang good arcade style game that holds up well today. You run through 256 connected screens on a 16 by 16 grid, and it's got a certain addictive quality to it. From 2004, Ultimate Play the Game is now called Rare, who at this point have achieved massive popularity thanks to Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, and all sorts of other stuff, and that leads to this game, simply titled Saber Wolf. It's not a remake of the original, and I'm not sure I'd call it a sequel either. It's kind of a reboot? And yeah, like I said, at first glance this looks like it would be some kind of Donkey Kong Country or Banjo-Kazooie spinoff, but nope, Saber Wolf is its own thing. Although Rare did sneak in references in their games here and there, like the aforementioned Saber Wolf in Killer Instinct. So the way this game works is that this blue wolf has been terrorizing towns and stealing stuff, just for fun, I guess, until Saberman catches him and seals him in a statue using a powerful magical amulet. Some evil guy comes along and breaks the amulet into eight pieces, scattering them everywhere, and Saber Wolf is back in reeking havoc again, so Saberman, now super old and sporting a Wilford Brimley-style mustache, has to chase down the eight pieces of the amulet across eight different worlds that consist of six or seven levels each, with every world culminating in a boss level, so to speak. The way the gameplay is set up has the wolf steal something, then burrow underground, thus creating a level that you have to navigate to get back the stolen item, and you do that by a combination of platforming and puzzle solving with the help of all sorts of different animal friends. Hey, it wouldn't be a proper Rare game if there weren't happy-go-lucky animals to help you out. You use the animals to get past enemies and obstacles to retrieve the item, then you run for your life back to the beginning as the wolf chases you. Your animal helpers include a bear you can bounce off of, a pile of slime that enemies will stick to, a dragon that you can use as a platform, really, you're a freakin' dragon, you can't do anything else to help me? And that leads to a larger point, the idea here is solid, the execution is good and the controls are perfectly fine, but the level design here is just boring. The game does not take enough advantage of all the different tools you get, it's all extremely straightforward and pretty dang easy. I'm not expecting Donkey Kong Country 2 type levels, that game has some of the best level design I've ever seen, but I couldn't help but feel let down by Saber Wolf. Every level has the same structure, so it's just the same thing over and over, the pieces are here but the gameplay still falls short. But that leads me to my next point, in that it's pretty dang obvious that this game had two purposes. One was to appeal to kids of a certain age, and even today it certainly does the job with tons of colorful settings, some lively sprite animation, and some extremely forgiving gameplay. And hey that's totally fine, I'm just saying if you decide to play this one, make sure to temper your expectations. The second purpose is, uh, well this is a Game Boy Advance game, it was made with the intention of being a quick pick up and play and put down type of game. And sure enough, you can save just about anywhere on the overworld and resume your game no problem. One major thing Saber Wolf does have going for it is the story and the presentation. There's lots of dialogue where the characters sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. You gotta love that. This game has tons of charm and lots of moments that'll have you grinning, like hey why does this old ass Saberman have to retrieve all this stolen stuff, what about these troops here? Oh it turns out they're just cosplaying because they think it'll get them chicks. Why does that sound familiar? Other reviews of this game always make sure to point out this game's decidedly British sense of humor, but since I'm an American I can't really speak to that myself all that well, but I mean it's made by rare, of course it's got those influences. So yeah, Saber Wolf for Game Boy Advance is well made and fulfills what I perceive to be its intended purposes, to make a kid friendly game and to make a portable friendly game. This isn't the type of game you sit down to play one long play through for hours or you'll be bored to tears. Granted I should mention that there are some other small aspects to the gameplay like some side quests here and there, or like if you use a boomer animal helper to get rid of more than one enemy, it results in a combo that gives you extra money which you can use to buy more animal helpers. But it still doesn't make up for the fact that the level design and the puzzles here are extremely ordinary and repetitive. But if all you're looking for is a simple pick up and play portable game with a lot of charm, then don't let that deter you. Saber Wolf will be worth your time. Alright I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.