For the longest time this was the only "shovelware" game I could recall having played in my youth. But after tracking it down out of nostalgia, setting up the windows '95 DOS, and clearing the first world, I discovered that it was actually a perfectly good game, and my memory kicked in from there. Ostensibly a 3D platformer, the best way to imagine how this thing plays is to take classic Frogger (the Seinfeld episode shows you everything you need to know), then apply the (winning?) formula to 3D, maze-like stages. There isn't as much verticality as in something like the 3D Marios, but for the first time in the series you'll be ascending and descending the maps, complete with forced camera angles. There are also brand-new "setpiece" sequences that radically change the mechanics for a brief period as well, such as an Indiana Jones-style boulder escape, and a high-speed space race that has you dodging obstacles at a frantic pace.
It isn't so much about coordination in Frogger 2, as it is in a traditional platformer — I don't think it is even possible to mistime, or overshoot a jump (since you always travel the same distance forward lol) — but about situational awareness and pattern recognition. You'll get sealed in rooms with ravenous enemies (a word about "enemies" in the game: they all behave like cars, basically running through the same pattern and inadvertently slaughtering poor Frogger when he is run over by them. I believe there is at least one sequence where something intelligently pursues you though) and basically have to navigate the correct pattern through them. This is mixed up with the actual "platforming" part of the game, where floating logs, or disappearing/retracting platforms will drop you to your doom if you fail to correctly clear them.
So yeah. I'm sure at this point people are wondering: "Wtf? Why would I want to play this game? And why are you speaking highly of it? It's a mishmash of outdated arcade design and the sensibilities of an autistic child. Playing as a fagoty little stunted frog? Gimme a break". Well, all I can say to that is: the game works. Each of the 17 stages are totally distinct, going from the garden stage that I revisited, to a series of ancient egyptian ruins, the center of the earth, a disco research facility, outer space, a creepy undead graveyard, and the steampunk-ish finale that has you going straight up a stage instead of across it. Add responsive controls and an interesting array of powerups, and you've basically got the most mechanically advanced Frogger game ever.
As for the aesthetics — if you can get over the essentially western-children's-cartoon art, basically all the environments/enemies are well-designed and more than adequately modeled for a PS1/Dreamcast game. The enemies are genuinely repulsive and frightening at times (the aforementioned pursuing enemy some sort of unholy combination of Wolfenstein's loper and Biohazard 4's regenerador), with my personal favorite being the stuff in the two "haunted" stages. Machinery in the background belches smoke and steam, lava flows convincingly, and the ants in the ant nest stage go to work diligently. The music is also pretty rad, and scored to fit each stage, from sitar and flute ensembles on the ruins stages, disco in the labs, and slasher music in haunted stages.
You will begin to wonder what sorts of drugs the developers were on when you see the hilariously bizarre cutscenes: it literally begins with a sex scene between Frogger and his equally amphibian girlfriend, with the rest following the deranged exploits of Swampy, their archnemesis. In a particularly frightening scene, he guns down a number of Frogger's tadpoles on some sort of TV show or movie he is filming. Yikes!
The difficulty peaks early at a lukewarm level, but other than that, it's a pretty solid game. The best way to enjoy it is to just turn your brain off, grab a beer, and enter a sort of Frogger trance, frantically dodging, jumping, and of course, dying in the games many hilariously gory fatalities. Someone gift it to Costanza!
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