Released in the latter years of the Super Nintendo, Power Piggs of the Dark Age looks for all the world to be a licensed title based on some forgotten “band of radical animals” cartoon, with its toony artstyle and somewhat fluidly animated characters. It isn’t, instead seeming to be an original concept by ideas studio Barr Entertainment (also responsible for conceptualizing Sküljagger: Revolt of the Westicans) that was then contracted to Radical Entertainment. That might be the second most interesting thing about Power Piggs, which is otherwise a drably mediocre platformer that’s hard to recommend.
The peaceful medieval kingdom of Piggs (that’s not a misspelling) is currently under attack by the wicked Wizzard of Wolff (also not a misspelling) and his terrible forces, and the only one who can stop them is the donut-loving swordsman Bruno of the Power Piggs. There isn’t much of a story in-game, but the US manual offers a fully illustrated comic that expands upon the setting somewhat, showing off the Dark Age Donuts shop run by the Power Piggs and its other two members, Gabriel the inventor and Lotta the arbalist (neither of whom appear beyond the title screen oddly enough).
Your adventure plays out as a linear side-scroller, with the expected moves such as running, jumping, ducking to avoid enemy attacks and slashing with your sword, but you’ve also got some unique abilities. You can ride air currents that blow you upwards, where you can also use a spnning slash to get some extra height and deal damage, and bash crates open with your butt by holding down and jump in the air.
It’s quite annoying that you can’t butt bash your foes, but the crates grant you donuts that restore your health or special donuts that can be thrown at enemies. Depending on their color, these range from simple projectiles to ones that encircle you or home in nearby enemies, so they’re rather useful. You’ll have to be careful though, because while collecting the same donut type increases your ammo count, grabbing a different donut type changes it to that type with no way of swapping back.
Cautious play is the way to go, seeing as this is a platformer in the vein of Earthworm Jim or the Genesis version of Aladdin, where you’re a heavy character lumbering your way around levels and your responsiveness is slowed down to show how fluid the cartoony animation is. Jumping carries enough momentum to make traversing small platforms tricky, and changing direction is more annoying thanks to the camera taking a couple seconds to swing round. The camera also frustrates by being a bit too zoomed in, that you often won’t see enemies before they inevitably hurt you.
Enemies are generally cumbersome to deal with, as they go down in a couple of sword slashes and actually hitting them with your sword is quite touchy. You have to get right up to them, and there’s a decent chance they’ll manage to hurt you because you’re too close. This becomes more frequent as new types get introduced in each level, including small rats, jesters that jump all over the place, and guys who drop explosive spiky balls from above. It’s admittedly impressive that game consistently doles out new foes, but by the end, you’re contending with so many folks jumping or firing at you that it becomes a slog. What exacerbates this is how easy it is to miss the checkpoint icons, forcing you to repeat huge chunks of the stage if you end up dying.
But the game isn’t so merciless despite these problems. It’s easy enough to find healing donuts from crates or defeated enemies, you can also pick up enough silver donutholes to earn more lives, and you have unlimited continues so you can throw yourself at levels until you’ve figured it out. There’s also passwords available so you can resume your progress, though there’s bafflingly just three passwords and only one of them is directly given to you at the adventure’s midpoint. Stage designs are open-ended enough that you can find special donuts and extra lives with a bit of exploration, and even the bosses that appear every second stage are reasonable enough to be worked out.
The question is whether you’d want to push through the game, and that’s tough to answer. Levels meander for a while until they stop, and although they initially give each stage distinct obstacles like winding trees, conveyor belts and bouncy vines, the back half of the game dumps you into slightly altered nighttime versions of earlier levels. In fact, the seventh stage recycles the first stage’s layouts albeit with more enemies and fewer platforms.
There’s the bones of a moderately okay action game here, but Radical simply didn’t have enough time to do much with it, in terms of polish or the underlying game. There’s only eight levels, and they’re not compelling enough to revisit when the whole package is so underwhelming. You can try a two-player mode, except that it’s of the “taking turns” variety where you’re still only playing as Bruno. The graphics feature some charmingly drawn enemy designs, but the middling animation and drab colors make for a dry looking game. Working out slightly better is Marc Baril’s soundtrack, which goes for a funky sound full of brassy chords and thumping basslines. Although the instrument samples drag that funkiness down, it’s an amusing contrast with the medieval setting and it even includes distinct tracks for every stage.
Although it was released exclusively for the SNES, Power Piggs also had a Mega Drive version in the works. It was far enough along to receive reviews from European magazines Mega Force and Sega Power before its cancellation, and has not yet been made available unofficially or otherwise. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Power Piggs is the unlockable minigame that can be accessed by typing in a special code on the password screen. It’s a short shmup called “Bad Guys From Space II”, where you pilot a ship blasting at digitized heads of some of the game’s dev team as they fire at you. Radical had a habit of including plenty of secrets in their 16-bit games that featured their staff in some way, and this is a charming example of that legacy.
Bad Guys From Space II
LINKS:
The game’s page on The Cutting Room Floor, which provides the password to play “Bad Guys From Space II” along with a couple of other special codes: https://tcrf.net/Power_Piggs_of_the_Dark_Age
