While British developer Vectordean is best remembered for the James Pond games, they also produced a few other titles during the early 90s. One of these is Rolo to the Rescue, a cute puzzle platformer released exclusively for the Genesis that’s quite simple but offers plenty of exploration and challenge for those willing to look for it.
You play as Rolo, a young elephant who was captured by the cruel McSmiley’s Circus and forced to perform tricks. Luckily he’s been able to escape, but now he needs to make his way back home to his mom and rescue the various animals locked up in cages by McSmiley. You can run, dash and jump, as well as pick up glasses of water to shoot at enemies or vacuum cleaners to suck up objects by pressing C. To open the level exit, you’ll have to bonk the ringmaster carrying a key and use it to free all the caged animals.
The three most recently rescued animals will follow you around, taking attacks for you since you otherwise die in one hit, but you can also take control of them from the pause screen. Each animal can use their abilities to reach places Rolo can’t; rabbits bounce high, beavers float along the water, squirrels climb up walls and moles dig through special tunnels. However, they can’t unlock cages or activate the level exit, so you’ll sometimes have to use them to create pathways for Rolo to move forward.
It’s quite satisfying to unravel the stage’s knot, and there’s a great variety in the kinds of platforming puzzles each stage throws at you, though swapping between characters can be a bit awkward. You’re able to change back to Rolo at any time, but you can only control the other animals after you’ve swapped back to Rolo and only if they’re nearby. If an animal’s far enough away, they’ll disappear and you might need to restart the level in order to get another shot at clearing it. You can also have the animals sit on Rolo’s back while he moves around, which is mainly useful for keeping them nearby when you’re jumping across platforms, since they otherwise tend to fall off.
At first it can seem like there’s a lot to deal with in managing animals and making sure nobody gets hurt, but levels are short enough that you don’t need to redo much. There’s plenty of cages around so you can also head back and rescue another animal if you lose one. Exploration is encouraged in general, since looking off the beaten path will take you to areas filled with points, extra lives, and secret jigsaw pieces that’ll unlock new paths on the overworld map. These levels tend to be more challenging, requiring better platforming reflexes or puzzle solving skills, but they only contain more lives and optional stages so you can ignore them if you like.
It’s impressive how many secrets there are, and discovering them is always a treat. But it’s much appreciated that you can carry on with the regular game, only checking out the secrets if you’re in need of more lives. You’re also able to revisit previous stages, where the animals will already be freed, which is a nice consideration for players looking to grab anything they’ve missed.
You certainly might need to, because while Rolo isn’t a punishing game, its controls and camera can be pretty squirrelly. The camera takes a couple seconds to swing round if you turn the other direction, making it tough to anticipate enemies or obstacles. Jumping’s a bit awkward on smaller platforms, particularly when you’re holding down the dash button to try and jump further due to a slight delay. These issues get exacerbated when levels start getting trickier after the first couple worlds, growing longer or introducing numerous enemies that can easily kill you. The lack of checkpoints means you have to beat them in one go, which is often fine but irritating for the tougher stages.
Where things can get most frustrating are the handful of boss fights, which are reasonably designed but ask you to dodge their attacks and hit them in the brief opportunities you get without being able to take any damage (since you’re on your own). It’s quite easy to run out of lives if they’re giving you trouble, and with only five continues and no password system, it means starting from the beginning if you run out.
The lack of passwords is odd given how many levels there are, especially when you need to rescue all the animals to get the best ending (the default ending is surprisingly bleak). But the main adventure is quite compact enough so it doesn’t take long to retrace your steps, giving you the chance to learn the game, play better and discover new secrets with each new run. The stages’ quick pace ensures you’re never stuck anywhere for too long, and even gets you itching to play just one more level.
Rolo to the Rescue accomplishes what it sets out to do quite nicely, and it helps that it looks and sounds cute on top of that. The graphics are bright and colorful, with plenty of charming characters abound, pleasingly rendered backgrounds and nice details like Rolo wearing different hats for each area and the animals having unique idle animations (such as the rabbit who reads a book and reacts to it). The music by Philip Bak has a light-hearted mellow vibe that fits the adventure, although the fact that all the pieces are in the same key of A major and cycle between levels rather than being tied to specific areas results in them blurring together after a while.
