REVIEW: Captain Knick Knack
Game Title: Captain Knick Knack
Genre: Shooter
System: Mega Duck (MD011)
Developer: Sachen
Release date: 1993
Genre: Shooter
System: Mega Duck (MD011)
Developer: Sachen
Release date: 1993
Captain Knick Knack may hold an immediate air of familiarity to anyone who ever owned one of those Chinese multi-game carts for the original Gameboy. The game was one of several Sachen developed Mega Duck titles to be ported to Nintendo’s handheld once it became apparent who was winning the handheld war.
The reasons it was selected for a port are apparent within a few moments of playing it. Captain Knick Knack looks lovely, even on the Mega Duck’s often hard-to-see screen. It’s clear that the developer put some serious effort into the game’s visual design.
Essentially a Twinbee homage; ‘clone’ would be the wrong word to use here as, while it does heavily evoke the vertically scrolling cute-em up classic, it has enough individual charm and ideas left over to give the developer a little more credit than that.
You play as the eponymous Captain, a turtle (so the box art would have you believe) who appears to fly through the sky in the guise of what appears to be a giant set of robotic genitals! (with his turtle form only revealed upon death).
The Captain begins the game as a slow moving and cumbersome large sprite, however his movement and the ferocity and width of his firepower can be improved by picking up the various power-ups dropped by blasted enemies. He is also equipped with 3 shields per life, activated with the B button. These give you a precious 15 seconds of invulnerability as the Cap ducks into his shell and can destroy enemies (and damage bosses) simply by touching them.
The reasons it was selected for a port are apparent within a few moments of playing it. Captain Knick Knack looks lovely, even on the Mega Duck’s often hard-to-see screen. It’s clear that the developer put some serious effort into the game’s visual design.
Essentially a Twinbee homage; ‘clone’ would be the wrong word to use here as, while it does heavily evoke the vertically scrolling cute-em up classic, it has enough individual charm and ideas left over to give the developer a little more credit than that.
You play as the eponymous Captain, a turtle (so the box art would have you believe) who appears to fly through the sky in the guise of what appears to be a giant set of robotic genitals! (with his turtle form only revealed upon death).
The Captain begins the game as a slow moving and cumbersome large sprite, however his movement and the ferocity and width of his firepower can be improved by picking up the various power-ups dropped by blasted enemies. He is also equipped with 3 shields per life, activated with the B button. These give you a precious 15 seconds of invulnerability as the Cap ducks into his shell and can destroy enemies (and damage bosses) simply by touching them.
From left to right: Title Screen, The Captain in shielded form and the Captain as he appears while a regular sprite.
It is, however, unfortunate that the game doesn’t employ use of these shields more tactically. The size of your sprite means that sometimes, when the bullets are flying everywhere you have no choice but to activate your shield mid level. Yet those same shields are all but essential for defeating the enormous end of level bosses who are almost impossible to avoid without them!
The game itself is no easy feat. While it offers selectable difficulty (easy or hard) the 3 continues you are given are your lot, so it can be challenging to progress and the Gradius effect of losing all of your power-ups late in a level can have the same disastrous consequences as it does in Konami’s classic. At the time of writing I have been unable to best stage 3’s snake boss and so I’m unable to report just how long the game actually is.
Coming back to the positives, however, Sachen’s typical Kirby-esque cuteness shines through visually. Each level looks and feels different, with jungles, oceans and Egyptian pyramids scrolling past below you. The game makes excellent use of the Mega Ducks smooth scrolling ability and, while some stages offer a little too much background clutter for the low visibility screen of the Mega Duck, each stage has its own separate bouncy theme tune to accompany the change-up in graphics and enemies. Despite their difficulty, bosses are large and impressive and have a nice Parodious vibe to their animations.
Overall, Captain Knick Knack is a solid vertical shooter that is sonically and graphically pleasant and will provide a solid, if unspectacular challenge to 8-bit shoot-em-up fans.
Score: 7/10
The game itself is no easy feat. While it offers selectable difficulty (easy or hard) the 3 continues you are given are your lot, so it can be challenging to progress and the Gradius effect of losing all of your power-ups late in a level can have the same disastrous consequences as it does in Konami’s classic. At the time of writing I have been unable to best stage 3’s snake boss and so I’m unable to report just how long the game actually is.
Coming back to the positives, however, Sachen’s typical Kirby-esque cuteness shines through visually. Each level looks and feels different, with jungles, oceans and Egyptian pyramids scrolling past below you. The game makes excellent use of the Mega Ducks smooth scrolling ability and, while some stages offer a little too much background clutter for the low visibility screen of the Mega Duck, each stage has its own separate bouncy theme tune to accompany the change-up in graphics and enemies. Despite their difficulty, bosses are large and impressive and have a nice Parodious vibe to their animations.
Overall, Captain Knick Knack is a solid vertical shooter that is sonically and graphically pleasant and will provide a solid, if unspectacular challenge to 8-bit shoot-em-up fans.
Score: 7/10
