Plok

Looking for a serious storyline along the lines of Golden Sun or something similar? Well then, you have definitely have the wrong game here! Plok, our jovial red and yellow main character, returns back to this home only to find that someone has stolen the flag from atop his residence. Angered by this he searches his continent for it, but to no avail. So, instead, he heads off to Cotton Island, the only other place it could be, in order to retrieve it from a duo called the Bobbins Brothers. On returning home, recaptured flag in tow, Plok is distressed to find that fleas have colonised the whole of his land, replacing all of his personalised flags with special flea ones! And so the game continues, not taking itself seriously in the slightest...

We all know by now that graphics do not always make a game what it is...but it sure does help if a title you are playing is easy on the eyes. Thankfully, Plok! is not only pretty, but was one of the loveliest looking platformers on the SNES at the time. The whole package is tailored to mimic a sumptuous-looking cartoon and succeeds with an abundance of colour splashed around the various levels and plenty of that good old attention-to-detail. Trees have little buttons on them, the fleas have cute goggly eyes and the maps for each of the new areas Plok visits have nice amounts of detail. Of special note are the backgrounds and the special Plok-morphs. The former are reminiscent of an early version of Yoshi's Island's style, in other words pastel-esque drawings

 

There are, however, a few problems with the frame-rate at certain points of the game, usually when there is a lot of action on-screen

 

At the time of this game's release, there was no Rayman, therefore the idea of having a loose-limbed character was quite innovative at that point. Also, Plok varies slightly to Ubi Soft's main mascot. Whilst he can still shoot off his arms, Plok can also use his legs as projectiles. Sometimes they do not always return for future-use straight away as it all depends on the level you are currently frequenting. You see, there are certain puzzles that require you to sacrifice your limbs in order to complete them. This, in turn, leaves you with a character that is rather hard to control and definitely susceptible to incoming attacks from the plethora of pesky enemies. Plok can be aided by his special abilities amulet that is boosted by the collection of numerous shells that float around in the diverse levels (they also award gamers with extra lives, which are always of great benefit in a title as tough as this one!). Many of the special morph abilities accessible via the amulet can be seen in the Plok Collage screenshot at the beginning of this review

 

There are four main areas to play through in the world of Polyesta: Cotton Island, Akrillic, Legacy Island and The Flea Pit. But there are two difficulty levels to be found in Plok!, both of which determine just how much of the game you get to see when playing. The first, 'Child's Play', grants access to Cotton Island, all but the final stage of Akrillic, gives the option of completing the first level of Legacy Island (but no more than that) and completely misses out The Flea Pit. Choosing normal mode, however, forces you to play through all the game's levels against enemies that are now faster and stronger, with some even being totally invulnerable! What makes matters even more gruelling is that the game has no battery back-up or passwords. Therefore you must set-aside a significant amount of time in order to play all the way through Plok!, which is no mean feat due to the vastly increased levels of difficulty towards the end. There is a lack of extra options, though, or any form of multi-player extras. So, all in all, the game will last you a fair while due to its difficulty level causing you to continuously start from scratch