 SEGA DRUNK! Alright, it's time to play some Green Dog! Sorry, I don't know what it is about this game that makes me want to shout Green Dog! There's already like three dozen review videos of this game on YouTube, but this was a Patreon request, so I might as well find out what the big deal is. Well, it's yet another mascot platformer. This one for the Sega Genesis released in 1992 as a joint venture between Interactive Designs and Sega Technical Institute, who, as you probably know, had a hand in the Sonic sequels and even stuff like Die Hard Arcade, so this should be great, right? Now, as far as mascot platformers go, it's definitely different. First of all, the quote-unquote mascot here is a totally righteous surfer dude with a mop of hair covering his face, making him look a little bit like Boo Boo from Bob's Burgers, but he really just looks like he's wearing my grandma's gardening hat. Actually, the character is based on a real person, an inventor named Rick Green, who created a board game called Surf Trip. The story is that a wave wipes him out while surfing, and in the process, he somehow ends up wearing this weird Aztec pendant, and he's unable to take it off. This pendant makes any living thing nearby freak out and try and kill him, and in a shocking coincidence, it's also somehow able to prevent him from surfing, which is a total bummer, man. So, to get the pendant off, he's gotta go collect six artifact pieces on six different islands to put together an ancient Aztec participation trophy. Gotta love these story exposition segments where it's just two people standing there forever. What did Kevin Smith direct this game? You get four lives and one continue to get through eight levels split up into two or three different stages. No saves or passwords, but there's plenty of checkpoints if you die, and holy crap, it takes real effort to actually die in this game, because it's incredibly forgiving. There's food flying all over the place when you either kill an enemy or hit one of these statue things, so even if you take damage, just keep spamming your Frisbee attack, and you'll eventually stumble into some life replenishment somehow. Seriously, just walk right on through this first level and let the piranhas go nuts. Geez, even Nick Punto did more damage than these guys. So yeah, this game is really forgiving, but there are some insta-deaths along the way that you gotta be cognizant of. Really, the toughest parts you gotta deal with are when you have to ride a skateboard or rollerblades, in its Adventure Island style, although Green Dog here doesn't get cool fashionable knee pads like Master Higgins does. There's some other variety here too, like pedaling this gyrocopter thing with a completely ineffectual punching glove you can extend outward, and of course, what mascot platformer is complete without an underwater stage. Man, I hate this trend. Let's take an already slow game and slow it down even further. I guess it makes sense, since this game does have a beach motif, but levels like this are more work than fun. I don't mean to be too hard on this game, it's fine for what it is. It reminds me a bit of Chuck Rock, especially from a visual standpoint, and it's got an aesthetic that reminds me of something like Outrun, especially with the music. It's a very easygoing slow-paced platformer, and by slow-paced I don't mean sluggish, more like deliberate. You might feel overwhelmed playing this one at first with the sheer amount of enemies coming at you, and they're all way faster than you can move, which feels problematic since you're such a huge ass target. But once you see that they barely do any damage, and you're constantly inhaling food like it's a Kirby game, then all you gotta worry about are the InstaDeath bottomless pits. My only real gripes are the underwater sections, which actually do feel sluggish, and the skateboarding or rollerblading sections, where the game pulls the battle toads on you, and you suddenly have to get used to a completely different feel for the controls. It's not game-breaking or anything, it's just kind of annoying. There's lots of little touches this game has going for it as well. C jumps, B throws your Frisbee, and A uses one of many special items you can get, like a Super Disc that auto-seeks enemies for a short period, a clock that freezes everything on screen, or an umbrella that makes Green Dog invincible. You also have a dog named Fetch that comes by every once in a while, and if you manage to grab a bone, Fetch will follow you and take out a few enemies here and there. In the meantime, if you can't find a bone, Fetch will just eat all the food that's meant for you. Huh, sounds kind of familiar, like a certain Clyde dog that I know. One other thing I want to mention is that while the manual for this game is pretty standard stuff, Green Dog actually had its own comic that spanned two issues of Max Overload. I love stuff like this. The artwork here is seriously great, and it's clear that whoever worked on this really put some effort into it. This can be easily found if you Google it, so check it out if you can. As for the game itself, it's fine. It's a pretty easy-going game, where the controls are wonky at first, but the game is slowly paced, so you get plenty of time to get used to it. The skateboarding and rollerblading sections kind of suck. I'm not gonna lie, but the rest of the game is good enough to kill an hour or so. I would advise to stay away from the Game Gear port, because it makes a slow game even slower and throws in some really warrenky hit detection as well. But Green Dog, or I'm sorry, Green Dog for Genesis, is a decent playthrough. It's definitely not gonna make any top 20 or even top 50 lists, but it's fine for what it is. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.