I feel a little bit like Robin Williams in Jumanji right now; bearded, bewildered and wondering what year it is.
If I didn’t know any better I could have sworn that I had stepped through some kind of portal back to the early 90s because I’ve spent the last week playing Duck Tales and Flashback and this week I’m playing Superfrog.
When it was first released in 1993, SuperFrog was hands down one of the finest platformers of the period and this was the age of the platformer, a mystical age when the likes of Sonic and Mario received the kind of attention, praise and hype that Call of Duty does today, a time when the sky was blue, the grass was green and almost every other protagonist was an anthropomorphic animal or a blue collar worker.
Superfrog, as you may have guessed was one such tale. You play a prince that has had his bride to be kidnapped by a wicked witch and has been transformed into a frog. Luckily for him, Lucozade give him the power to attempt to take on the evil witch, rescue his one true love.
You read that correctly folks, like many other noteworthy and surprisingly decent games of the period such as Pushover and Cool Spot, Superfrog had a sponsor in the guise of energy drink Lucozade.
Fast forward 20 years and the Amiga classic is back, although to be honest this isn’t entirely the Superfrog I remember, but I was seven when I first played it.
For a start the levels have been re-jiggered to be a little more accommodating to the modern gamer, who by and large have less masochistic tendencies than the arcade hardened ilk of 1992.
However, for those of you that do remember playing the spike laden nightmares of the original Amiga version, these levels can be unlocked via the fruit machine mini game at the end of each level which used to grant checkpoints. How times have changed, eh?
Despite the remixed levels, Superfrog still retains all of the charm and whimsy of the original, except now Superfrog looks just like he did on the box and less like a giant green bug with a cape. The HD visuals do a fantastic job of making the game modern but still maintain the feel and style of the original. In short, this is what Amiga games would look like now if commodore hadn’t gone tits up. It’s bright, crisp, slightly garish but brimming with charm.
Controlling Superfrog feels like a mixture of Luigi and Sonic, able to run quickly and jump really high, with the ability to glide on with his cape with the wings pick up. However, it also maintains certain quirks inherent in Amiga platformers, in particular there’s a slight but noticeable lag when you jump and controlling your descent feels a little floaty. Originally stuff like this was put in to compensate for the short comings of the various joysticks which the Amiga used, It seems a little weird that they didn’t decide to tweak this and I could see people unfamiliar with these conventions and expecting the pin point precision or twitch reflexes of genre greats such as Mario and Sonic might find this a little awkward. Despite this on the whole controlling Superfrog feels a lot more precise with a PS3 D-pad than it ever did with a stick.
What makes Superfrog stand out from the competition though is its brilliant level design and humour. You are literally dumped into the middle of each stage dazed and confused. You then need to hunt for the exit whilst collecting every last coin, fruit and gem you can get your slimy little pads on.
The game has twenty four maze like levels and six boss levels, across six different themes including a forest, a creepy castle you’ll scour looking for the exits as well as hidden passages littered throughout them hidden in seemingly impenetrable walls which will peel away as you dash into them. In order to get the high score and escape each level you’ll need to explore every possible nook and cranny.
Within the original levels you need to collect so many gold coins before you can exit, however in the new levels you just need to find the exit before the time runs out, but it never feels like there’s any danger of it doing so.
Although I really enjoyed the update there was one thing that I wish they had taken the time to alter and that’s the boss fights with the witch which remain the low point of the game and are as simple as finding the right spot to stand and then spamming the range attack button until she buggers off until the next time.
Once you’ve finished the new and original levels there are also the Frog Trials to try which change the game into a more linear left to right platformer in which you have to fight the clock to get to the end of each level.
There is also a rather robust level editor for making your own custom built levels, although pretty simple to use sadly there is no way to share your creations with other players.
Aside from a couple of minor gripes, Superfrog is a capable and very well presented HD remake of a classic game, if you played the original you’ll have a great time with Superfrog HD however if you’re new to the game it may feel a little weird at times as it doesn’t have the same kind of twitch gameplay you’d find in the likes of Mario.
But for the price of admission you really can’t complain especially considering that the game features cross save and buy features so you get both the PS3 and Vita versions of Superfrog HD for only £6.49
