REVIEW: Carlo Adventure Legend
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"According to history record, Carlo found the site of lost kingdoms. It lies near a ruined urban. Where there are a lot of obstacles and monsters who live in the ruined urban. If Carlo want to reach at the site, he have to get rid of all the obstacles and monsters."
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Carlo’s Adventure Legend or simply ‘Caro’ according to its title screen isn’t even attempting to disguise its origins. It’s as straight a clone of Super Mario Bros as the hardware will reasonably allow.
Like many Gameking games, the impractical way that the carts use memory leads to a disappointingly short experience. There are only three stages for Caro to complete in his legendary quest through the ‘ruined urban’. The instructions identify them as ‘urban’, ‘sewer’ and ‘coast’ but they are in reality, modified, slightly elongated, versions of Worlds, 1-1, 1-2 and 1-3 from the original Super Mario Bros.
All the Mario trademarks are there, mushrooms make you bigger (and bestow you with arms and a hat, apparently), flowers grant you fireballs (rendered here more like tiny dots) and a diamond grants you the familiar flashing invincibility that would otherwise have come from a star on a more graphically capable system!
Like many Gameking games, the impractical way that the carts use memory leads to a disappointingly short experience. There are only three stages for Caro to complete in his legendary quest through the ‘ruined urban’. The instructions identify them as ‘urban’, ‘sewer’ and ‘coast’ but they are in reality, modified, slightly elongated, versions of Worlds, 1-1, 1-2 and 1-3 from the original Super Mario Bros.
All the Mario trademarks are there, mushrooms make you bigger (and bestow you with arms and a hat, apparently), flowers grant you fireballs (rendered here more like tiny dots) and a diamond grants you the familiar flashing invincibility that would otherwise have come from a star on a more graphically capable system!
Like several GameKing titles the game's title screen displays a slightly different name to what is on the packaging! We're also not sure why 'Caro' appears to be related to his GameKing brethren 'Duckman'...unless that's a really badly drawn nose!
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Caro in his mushroom powered 'big' form approaches a familiar looking pipe. Unfortunately none of the pipes in stage 1 lead to hidden screens. Stage 2 on the other hand...
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Caro in his small form approaches the game's first and only enemy type. Some sort of odd turnip looking goomba. The lack of variety in enemies to spice things up is one of the game's unfortunate failings.
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Disappointingly, secret zones courtesy of pipes are limited, with none whatsoever in the first pipe laden stage. The game encourages you to collect coins but your tally is only visible at the end of each stage and their collection seems to be for little more than to add a high score challenge to an otherwise short experience (and of course because the game is ripping off Super Mario Bros where coins are so iconic.)
The music is a cheerful, if, once again, badly stitched together in an eight second loop. The game continues to plunder it's source material by shamelessly cribbing several Super Mario Bros sound effects and riffs including the familiar death jingle. Disappointingly, there is no final castle, princess or boss waiting for you at the end of Caro’s journey (just the usual short animation) and indeed the only 'monsters' in the game are the wandering goombas, here re-imagined as surprised looking turnips. Bizarrely, despite it being a game of such brevity the developer has opted to include a level select feature and you can choose from which of the three stages you wish to being.
Still, a little Super Mario Bros is rarely a bad thing and Caro is no exception. It’s fun while it lasts and the controls are responsive, with a pressure sensitive jump letting Caro go from a small hop to a screen high leap if necessary.
Players left wanting more can indeed find it, as Caro is not the only game to utilise this engine on the GameKing. However, in this short burst, it succeeds fairly well at pulling off Super Mario Bros on the GameKing…even if it can’t quite decide on, or indeed create, its own identity.
Score 7/10
The music is a cheerful, if, once again, badly stitched together in an eight second loop. The game continues to plunder it's source material by shamelessly cribbing several Super Mario Bros sound effects and riffs including the familiar death jingle. Disappointingly, there is no final castle, princess or boss waiting for you at the end of Caro’s journey (just the usual short animation) and indeed the only 'monsters' in the game are the wandering goombas, here re-imagined as surprised looking turnips. Bizarrely, despite it being a game of such brevity the developer has opted to include a level select feature and you can choose from which of the three stages you wish to being.
Still, a little Super Mario Bros is rarely a bad thing and Caro is no exception. It’s fun while it lasts and the controls are responsive, with a pressure sensitive jump letting Caro go from a small hop to a screen high leap if necessary.
Players left wanting more can indeed find it, as Caro is not the only game to utilise this engine on the GameKing. However, in this short burst, it succeeds fairly well at pulling off Super Mario Bros on the GameKing…even if it can’t quite decide on, or indeed create, its own identity.
Score 7/10
