I got Power Piggs of the Dark Age in summer 2007, complete with box and manual, from a movie rental store that was in a town we happened to be at vacation in, along with a couple dozen other SNES and N64 games.\u00a0 All of the games came with boxes, but not all had manuals.\u00a0 Anyway, I’d played Power Piggs a bit, but had only gotten to the second level or so… too many games to play, didn’t make time for this one too.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gamefaqs.gamespot.com\/a\/box\/0\/3\/6\/51036_front.jpg\" "\\"Power")
The cover.<\/p><\/div>\n
However, I eventually decided to play the game more seriously.\u00a0 I’d been going through my SNES games and sorting them into piles by genre and maximum number of players, and this of course made me want to play some SNES, which I hadn’t in a few weeks… so I picked this one, and started.\u00a0 I got through the first four levels — half of the game, as it turns out — that night.\u00a0\u00a0 The next day I continued playing and got through levels 5-7 without too much trouble, though there were some tricky spots.\u00a0 Level 8, however… level 8 was harder, fortunately.\u00a0 I got through it in the end, though, and enjoyed my time with the game.\u00a0 The game feels unfinished and lacking, but has some original ideas and is fun enough that I like it despite the incomplete feel.<\/p>\n
Power Piggs of the Dark Age’s story is told in the manual in comic book form.\u00a0 Indeed, I’d recommend getting a copy of this one with the manual, because apart from three pages telling you how to play, the rest of the manual is entirely taken up with a silly and entertaining backstory comic book that introduces some of the plot elements and characters, too.\u00a0 It also sets the stage for the incomplete feel of the game as a whole, however.\u00a0 Still, on its own, it’s decent.\u00a0\u00a0 The story tells of a Medieval-style fantasy land where three Piggs own a donut shop.\u00a0 That’s just their cover, though; in reality, they’re heroes, fighting for justice against the evil Wolff wizard trying to enslave the land.\u00a0 Or one of them is, anyway.\u00a0 The other two appear in the comic and on the title screen, but not at any point in the actual game.\u00a0 Presumably they were supposed to, but got cut at some point.\u00a0 Even so though, the game has a strong humorous tone, and is amusing.\u00a0 I mean, “Medieval hero pigs with a donut shop versus the evil wolf wizard”?\u00a0 Yeah, that’s a silly fun plot. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 And they really do love donuts — in the game, donuts are everywhere.\u00a0 Whoever came up for the concept for this game must have been someone who was really, really hungry for donuts… your special weapons are all donuts, the pickups you collect (100-for-an-extra-life) are donut holes, your character’s an overweight pig who owns a donut shop, and more. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gamefaqs.gamespot.com\/a\/screen\/full\/6\/5\/7\/187657.jpg\")
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So, the gameplay.\u00a0 In Power Piggs, you play as Bruno the Pigg.\u00a0 As I said above, those other two characters from the cover and comic don’t exist in the game.\u00a0 His actions were clearly inspired by Aladdin of the Genesis version of Aladdin, as he has a sword as his main attack, and takes damage if he touches enemies — so don’t jump on their heads!\u00a0 His secondary attack is, like Aladdin, a throwing item; in this case donuts, not apples, to fit the humorous theme of the game.\u00a0 In this game, however, there are several different types of donut weapons, from the basic throwing donut to the homing donut to the one that sticks around on the screen for a while, killing every enemy it hits in one hit.\u00a0 He also has a slam attack (hold down when you jump), for breaking open crates to get at the contents inside.\u00a0 When floating in a blowhole’s vent (note: blowholes are air vents that blow you into the air, and they’re everywhere in this game.), you can do a spin attack by pressing right or left and attack simultaneously.\u00a0 There are a variety of enemies that you quickly become familiar with as you progress, from the archers hiding in windows to the other archers that chase you down to wolves (er, Wolffs, sorry… \ud83d\ude42 ) shooting fire to a wide variety of others.\u00a0 Each type of enemy takes predictable types of motions you can get used to as you face them more, and the game keeps introducing new enemy types until the last level to keep things interesting.\u00a0 The game’s most unique gameplay element is in level design however, not character or enemy design.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gamefaqs.gamespot.com\/a\/screen\/full\/6\/6\/0\/187660.jpg\" "\\"In")
First Level<\/p><\/div>\n
Indeed, Power Piggs’ level designs come straight out of the “huge and complex” field.\u00a0 The levels are quite large, with a main path you have to follow that often involves having to find a hidden path.\u00a0 The hidden paths are often marked with some kind of clue to get you to go there, but are hidden.\u00a0 They’re full of hard-to-access secret areas full of items to collect, often with alternate routes or large areas you can explore before you move on to the next part of the level, and often seemingly as many screens of height as length.\u00a0 You do not just run right in this game, you go in every direction.\u00a0 There are also no instant-death pits, which is great; there are some spike beds, but they only do damage, they don’t instantly kill you.\u00a0 There are some pit traps and many jumps, but falling only sends you back or to an area you will then have to work your way out of, it doesn’t kill you.\u00a0 This design decision works well, and the levels are interesting and fun to explore.\u00a0 Level designs are pretty good.\u00a0 The most unique element, however, are the aforementioned blowholes.\u00a0 Blowholes are air vents that push you upwards into the air, which may not seem like an utterly unique concept, but I don’t know of any other game with anywhere near this many of them.\u00a0 Every level is filled with blowholes.\u00a0 You float up to higher platforms in them, fight in them, use them to get out of pits, fight bosses in them, and more.\u00a0 Bosses come about every other level, so you’ll fight four bosses in the game.\u00a0 Whether or not you like the game will likely depend in large part how much you enjoy the way the blowholes work.\u00a0\u00a0 I found the concept fun, myself. It’s somewhat original as implemented here, and floating around in the air is fun.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gamefaqs.gamespot.com\/a\/screen\/full\/6\/6\/1\/187661.jpg\" "\\"Level")
Floating on a blowhole<\/p><\/div>\n
There is one frustrating element to the level designs, however: Checkpoints are often hidden just like items are.\u00a0 This makes you really want to spend your time searching, because you really, really want to hit those checkpoints, and even in the first level, it’s easy to miss them if you’re not paying attention and watching for them.\u00a0 Always pay attention to the paths made by the donut hole pickups, and follow those arcs with your jumps as much as you can!\u00a0 I didn’t really mind this, however.\u00a0 Making you work for your progress instead of just giving it to you, and having some more non-linear aspects to the game, are things that can work well, and they do here.\u00a0 I think it works great overall, even if it causes a bit of frustration along the way; there are more than enough games out there that hold your hand the whole way along.\u00a0 This one actually makes you think a bit to get to your goal, while not being TOO frustrating or obtuse.<\/p>\n
Oh, and the last level may have been tough, but I wouldn’t have wanted it easier… it was hard, but quite doable once you’ve learned the level through a lot of trial and error.\u00a0 Be careful, memorize what to do at each challenge, search for the more powerful donuts and use them strategically at the right points, and win! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 The level is quite a bit more challenging than the previous levels in the game, though.\u00a0 You’d hope the last level would be tough, particularly in a game with only eight levels, and it was.\u00a0 Enemies are all over, every kind of enemy in the game is present in force, there are a lot of very hard to avoid hits, blowholes everywhere make navigation tricky, there are many frustrating jumps that are easy to miss, forcing you to return to the last checkpoint, which, on that note, are quite far apart — the stage has three checkpoints, two in the middle and one before the boss… which isn’t much, with how far you go between them.\u00a0 So yeah, it’s a nice, tough classic side-scrolling platformer level.<\/p>\n
As for the graphics and sound, as you can see from the screenshots and as I said earlier, the game has nice cartoon art.\u00a0 I like the visual look of the game.\u00a0 Each level has a somewhat different look as well, so they don’t all look the same.\u00a0 The enemies are amusing too; all are fantasy-medieval animals, and each is silly looking in their own way.\u00a0 I like the art design here.\u00a0 The music is similarly solid.\u00a0 Sure, it’s nothing incredible, but it’s more than good enough to do, and the tunes are a bit catchy as well.\u00a0 No complaints here at all.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gamefaqs.gamespot.com\/a\/screen\/full\/6\/6\/2\/187662.jpg\" "\\"More")
In a house<\/p><\/div>\n
Despite how fun it is, the game does have several important flaws, unfortunately. The most obvious is how incomplete the game feels.\u00a0 While the game clearly was supposed to have three playable characters, you’d think, only one is.\u00a0 The other two are MIA, or something.\u00a0 The game’s short length reinforces this incomplete feel.\u00a0 Eight levels isn’t much, particularly when most of them are only moderately challenging.\u00a0 A third element reinforcing that this game has to have been rushed is the password system.\u00a0 You see, this game has password save… but there’s only actually one password.\u00a0 For some bizarre reason, you only get a password at ONE point in the game — at the beginning of level five, halfway through the game.\u00a0 What the heck?\u00a0 Why… why not every two levels or something?\u00a0 That’s so weird… and annoying. Sure eight levels isn’t long, but the last level takes a relatively long time to finish. It’d be great to be able to turn off the game and then later start right from that point, or at least from level seven (because as I mentioned above, there are only real bosses every two levels or so). You do have infinite continues (from the beginning of the level), but while great, that doesn’t help if you want to turn off the game. Oh well.<\/p>\n
Also, I know I’ve mentioned it repeatedly, but I just find it really strange that the other two characters are absent.\u00a0 Despite the box, manual, and backstory all clearly mentioning and describing the three Piggs in your heroic team, and the ending of the comic showing all three of them charging out to defeat the evil Wolffs, you can only actually play as Bruno.\u00a0 The other two only appear in the manual and main-menu screen art, with one exception: for no apparent reason, when you touch a checkpoint, the point turns into an image of one of the other two character’s head.\u00a0 I have no idea why.\u00a0 The other two weren’t kidnapped by the bad guy or anything like that; they simply aren’t in the game. Odd. Was this game shipped only partially complete? Was it originally supposed to be much more ambitious with multiple playable characters, but they had to cut back (the fact that there is a password system but only one password also makes me think this happened, as I’ve said)? Was it supposed to create a franchise and later titles would bring in the other characters in a more substantial way, but the game wasn’t nearly successful enough to earn that? The ending is sufficiently “there could be a sequel, so be prepared!” to think that any or all of those may have been the case… but despite how much the artwork and design make the game look like it’s a licensed game based on some obscure early ’90s cartoon, it’s not. It’s an original design.\u00a0 I’d be interested in hearing the backstory behind this game’s production.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I’ve never found anything.\u00a0 Too bad.<\/p>\n
Oh, and one final oddity.\u00a0 After beating the game and watching the ending cutscene (the Power Piggs are thanked by the happy Piggs for saving them from the evil Wizard of Wolff!\u00a0 Shocking!), it sent me back to the beginning of level 8 again… Uh… I don’t get it, I don’t know if I’ve seen a game do THAT before… some games loop you back to the start, but looping you to the beginning of the last level?\u00a0 How odd.\u00a0 Oh well, I won.\u00a0 You can beat the last level again then if you want, or something?\u00a0 Strange, but minor point.\u00a0 Fun game. Kind of rare, too — only a couple copies are ever on EBay… it’s not expensive, but is a bit rare.<\/p>\n
Finally, the game does have some cheat codes.\u00a0 Or rather, it has some hidden passwords that you will only find online, and not in the game.\u00a0 Check GameFAQs for the list, but two of the secret passwords allow you to start from two more of the levels.\u00a0 Not coincidentally, these levels are levels 3 and 7, so despite what I said above, you can indeed start from the other quarters of the game — you just aren’t given the passwords while playing.\u00a0 Thanks.\u00a0 Of the other three, one gives you a special credits sequence, one gives you a special message, and one a little shooter minigame you can’t play without this password.\u00a0 This shmup is called “Bad Guys from Space II”, and it’s not half bad, really.\u00a0 It’s a very simplistic game from the Space Invaders or Galaxian mold, where you move left and right and shoot at enemies coming down the screen at you, but it’s decently fun enough for its genre.\u00a0 Amusingly, while your ship is an average shmup spaceship, the enemies are all digitized heads of three of the programmers.\u00a0:p\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Silly stuff.<\/p>\n
Overall, I liked the game quite a bit, despite its issues and length.\u00a0 I think it’s a lot better than the game’s two GameFAQs reviewers do (a 3 and a 4, and one of those reviews wrongly says that the game has only six levels?), for sure.\u00a0 It’s a decently good, interesting, and somewhat unique platformer.\u00a0\u00a0 The artwork is great, in that Western cartoon style, and the music is pretty good as well.\u00a0 These two factors definitely helped keep me interested through the game — the art and music are very well done.\u00a0 In the end it’s not a great, great game, but it’s a solid, fun 16-bit platformer that fans of 2d platformers with exploration, Genesis Aladdin, or floating-in-the air action might want to try.\u00a0 This game is very poorly known, but it’s actually good, or at least average.\u00a0\u00a0 Score: C+.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Note: This is a substantially improved version of a review I originally wrote in 2008, not posted here before.) Title: Power Piggs of the Dark Age Developer: Radical Entertainment Publisher: Titus Software Released: May 1996 Platform: Super Nintendo Genre: Platformer … Continue reading