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The game was Treasure's first to be published by [[Enix]]. The publisher sought out Treasure for their known expertise in the action game genre, and had approached Treasure several times before the Nintendo 64 project arose.{{efn|Treasure CEO Maegawa was already fond of Enix, having applied to work there as a student (though he didn't get the job).<ref name="IGN: Treasure talks"/>}} Treasure chose Enix with their decision to make the game for the Nintendo 64. Around the time of ''Mischief Maker''{{'s}} Nintendo release, Enix had just signed its ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]'', historically a Nintendo game, to Sony.<ref name="IGN: Treasure talks"/> ''Mischief Makers'' was published in Western markets by Nintendo.<ref name="IGN: Nintendo to publish"/> Their localization of the Japanese game went ahead of schedule and its release date was pushed earlier.<ref name="IGN: Griffey"/> |
The game was Treasure's first to be published by [[Enix]]. The publisher sought out Treasure for their known expertise in the action game genre, and had approached Treasure several times before the Nintendo 64 project arose.{{efn|Treasure CEO Maegawa was already fond of Enix, having applied to work there as a student (though he didn't get the job).<ref name="IGN: Treasure talks"/>}} Treasure chose Enix with their decision to make the game for the Nintendo 64. Around the time of ''Mischief Maker''{{'s}} Nintendo release, Enix had just signed its ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]'', historically a Nintendo game, to Sony.<ref name="IGN: Treasure talks"/> ''Mischief Makers'' was published in Western markets by Nintendo.<ref name="IGN: Nintendo to publish"/> Their localization of the Japanese game went ahead of schedule and its release date was pushed earlier.<ref name="IGN: Griffey"/> |
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''Mischief Makers'' was demonstrated at E3 1997<ref name="IGN: Nintendo to publish"/> and later released in Japan on June 27, 1997, the United States on October 1, and the United Kingdom and Australia on January 15, 1998.<ref name="IGN review"/> Near the time of the game's Japanese launch in June 1997, Treasure announced that they were working on another Japan-only Nintendo 64 game for release in September, ''[[Bakuretsu Muteki Bangaioh]]'', later introduced to North America as ''Bangai-O''.<ref name="IGN: Bakuretsu"/> |
''Mischief Makers'' was demonstrated at E3 1997<ref name="IGN: Nintendo to publish"/> and later released in Japan on June 27, 1997, the United States on October 1, and the United Kingdom and Australia on January 15, 1998.<ref name="IGN review"/> Its Japanese title was ''Yuke-Yuke Trouble Makers'', or Go-Go Trouble Makers).<ref name="IGN: Treasure talks"/> Near the time of the game's Japanese launch in June 1997, Treasure announced that they were working on another Japan-only Nintendo 64 game for release in September, ''[[Bakuretsu Muteki Bangaioh]]'', later introduced to North America as ''Bangai-O''.<ref name="IGN: Bakuretsu"/> |
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== Reception == |
== Reception == |
Revision as of 12:42, 7 May 2014
Mischief Makers | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Treasure |
Publisher(s) | |
Designer(s) | Hideyuki Suganami |
Composer(s) | Norio Hanzawa |
Platform(s) | Nintendo 64 |
Genre(s) | Platformer |
Mode(s) | Single player |
Mischief Makers, known in Japan as Yuke Yuke!! Trouble Makers (ゆけゆけ!!トラブルメーカーズ, lit. Go Go!! Trouble Makers), is a side-scrolling 2D platform/puzzle video game developed by Treasure, and published by Enix in Japan and by Nintendo in America and Europe for the Nintendo 64. It was released in 1997 as one of the first 2D side-scrollers on the Nintendo 64.[1] The game's protagonist is the Ultra-Intergalactic-Cybot G Marina Liteyears (generally referred to as just Marina) who is a robotic maid of the absent-minded Professor Theo.
Plot
While visiting the planet Clancer, Professor Theo, a self-proclaimed 'genius in robotics', is kidnapped by the Empire,[2] acting upon orders from their evil emperor and estranged twin brother of Theo, who wishes to fill the world with hate and despair. Upon realizing Theo's abduction, his robotic maid Marina Liteyears sets out to rescue him. Every person, animal and inanimate object on the planet (including the planet itself) has an identical "face", seemingly belonging to a species called 'Clancer'.
The game sets through five stages on Planet Clancer, each one containing approximately 10 levels. The first stage that Marina will have to confront is full of theme parks, whacked deserts, and local gangsters. Here we meet King Aster (the leader of resistance against the Empire), Teran (a young boy attempting to get into the resistance) and other secondary characters, such as Calina, Marina's enemy and copycat.
Marina then manages to enter a world of volcanos and hot magma, where Migen kidnapped Professor Theo following the orders of his superiors. After defeating Migen Sr. and his son, Marina Liteyears goes to a cold world near a frozen mountain, where the local town is waiting for the Clancer Athletic Festival. Marina gets into a fight with Lunar (the first boss of the Beastector, a powerful trio of justice fighters who believe Marina is a criminal), a robotic humanoid wolf with a machine gun and several explosives, but eventually defeats him.
Marina participates in the Clancer Athletic Festival and wins the prize, Professor Theo. Suddenly a Clancer Kitten attempts to "fight" Marina but as he's too weak, he loses and as was stipulated, the Clancer Kitten takes Marina to the first boss shrine in the game: Cerberus Alpha, which is basically Lunar on a mechanical wolf that can transform into a motorcycle. The Clancer Kitten helps Marina in this fight, and is later dismissed by her after defeating Lunar and his wolf.
Again at home, Theo gets to be kidnapped again by Calina. So Marina has to save him again.
Meanwhile, the Empire is secretly watching Marina's steps, as she enters another world with huge mountains and rock slides. There, she will meet Taurus (later, Sasquatch Beta), a mechanical monkey-man with huge strength. Later in the game is beaten by Marina.
Marina saves Professor Theo and takes him home, just to be kidnapped by other Clancer minions.
The last level takes place inside the Empire. Marina must now defeat Merco, a handsome eagle-man with an array of lance and shield techniques. Merco later transforms to Phoenix Gamma and fights Marina in a flying level.
After the Beastector is beaten, Marina must destroy the Emperor Leo and later the final boss of the game, a giant robot which turns out to be a combination of the former Beastector.
The game ends showing the Clancers celebrating the end of the Empire. Teran attempts to escape, claiming that he's not a kid, but a hero that came from the sky. Two paths are opened here: one that shows Teran escaping after punching Marina, and another where Marina grabs Teran by his arm and tries to calm him down. In either one, Teran ends up shedding a tear next to his younger sister, who tells him that he always be part of the Clancer family.
The credits (or bonus), shows the human form of the Beastector (as long as all the Gold Gems were picked) and finally, the human form of Marina Liteyears.
Gameplay
Mischief Makers is a 2D side-scrolling platform game, the first on the Nintendo 64 console.[3] The game has been described as "2½D" since the background is in 3D but the gameplay is is in two dimensions.[4]
The player-character, a robotic maid named Marina, journeys to rescue her kidnapped creator. The game has five worlds with twelve levels apiece. Some levels feature straightforward action while others include puzzles. The player's goal is to reach a star at the end of each level. En route, Marina shakes enemies, breaks blocks, uses weapons, and rides bikes and wire mazes.[3]
Marina's main way of attacking is her grab move. She is able to take hold of enemies, objects, weapons, and even some enemy projectiles or attacks, which can be thrown or shaken, depending on the object. When certain objects are shaken, items such as crystals might appear. When Marina shakes some other objects, a secondary effect may be activated.
Later on in the game, Teran is available to play in two levels. His moves includes a standard punch, upper punch, low kick, and a block move. He also has the ability to hang from ceilings. His signature skill is the ability to jump up to three times consecutively.
Hidden within every stage is a gold gem. These gems are used in the final cutscene of the game with every gem adding one to three seconds to the ending. The extended ending adds character development to the villains, among various other things. The way the gold gem appears differs from stage to stage. For example, the gold gem will only appear on some boss stages if the boss is defeated without Marina being hit.
The four types of gems in this game are Red, Blue, Green, and Gold, all providing various amounts of health for Marina, red being the lowest, and Gold being the highest. Each stage follows a Super Mario Bros pattern (Such as 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, etc.). The Worlds follow various elements (World 1 is grasslands/desert, World 2 is fire, World 3 is snow, etc.). Cutscenes occur from time to time before, or after a stage is complete. A glowing green/blue star is usually the exit of a level.
If Marina grabs hold of a Clancer ball, she can "throw herself" off of it, and aim towards another ball. Clancer pots can store items inside it, if you have the right items, you can create some very interesting items.
Development
Treasure began to develop Mischief Makers in mid 1995. At the time, they knew little about the Nintendo 64's final technical specifications, graphics implementation, and development kit, but the team was "just curious" about the console. The game would eventually take full use of the console's capabilities. Treasure didn't have a "special relationship" with Nintendo for the game. The company had historically worked on Sega console games, partially due to what they deemed an easier development cycle. Bringing Mischief Makers to the Nintendo 64 was a hardware-based decision.[5] Treasure CEO Masato Maegawa said that development for the Nintendo 64 had a harsher learning curve than even the Sega Saturn. Also the Nintendo 64's cartridges were more expensive than CD-ROMs, though they loaded data instantly in comparison and were thus more conducive for action games such as Mischief Makers. The team didn't use special hardware techniques with the game, though one of the bosses was built in 3D and required special attention.[5]
In the three years between Treasure's founding and Mischief Makers's development, the company chose to take risks and released highly regarded games such as Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy.[5] The company's founders had come from Konami where they worked on Nintendo Entertainment System games such as Castlevania and Contra,[3] but found the development environment restrictive and left on a mission to "just ... create great games".[5] An average of 12 people worked on the Treasure development team, with up to 15 at times. Though its team composition was different from that of their previous titles, their lead programmer and character designer had previously worked on Gunstar Heroes. Treasure's CEO has said that they want to first make games in genres where they have experience, though they'd like to expand to new genres eventually. They sought to make something different from the Gunstar Heroes shoot 'em up design, and chose to build Mischief Makers around a "catching" gameplay mechanic unique to the title, which became the hardest aspect to implement.[5] Treasure CEO Maegawa felt that the company's games did not "have a particularly foreign, non-Japanese look" as compared to other Japanese game developers.[5]
The game was Treasure's first to be published by Enix. The publisher sought out Treasure for their known expertise in the action game genre, and had approached Treasure several times before the Nintendo 64 project arose.[a] Treasure chose Enix with their decision to make the game for the Nintendo 64. Around the time of Mischief Maker's Nintendo release, Enix had just signed its Dragon Quest VII, historically a Nintendo game, to Sony.[5] Mischief Makers was published in Western markets by Nintendo.[6] Their localization of the Japanese game went ahead of schedule and its release date was pushed earlier.[4]
Mischief Makers was demonstrated at E3 1997[6] and later released in Japan on June 27, 1997, the United States on October 1, and the United Kingdom and Australia on January 15, 1998.[3] Its Japanese title was Yuke-Yuke Trouble Makers, or Go-Go Trouble Makers).[5] Near the time of the game's Japanese launch in June 1997, Treasure announced that they were working on another Japan-only Nintendo 64 game for release in September, Bakuretsu Muteki Bangaioh, later introduced to North America as Bangai-O.[7]
Reception
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
GameRankings | 73%[8] |
Metacritic | 70/100[9] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
AllGame | [10] |
Electronic Gaming Monthly | 8 of 10 |
Game Informer | 7 of 10[11] |
GameSpot | 6.7 of 10[12] |
IGN | 6.2/10.0[3] |
Nintendo Power | 6.9 of 10 |
The game received "mixed or average reviews", according to video game review score aggregator Metacritic.[9] Multiple reviews criticized the sound.[3]
IGN's Matt Casamassina said that the game compensated for its average graphics with excellent level design and challenging gameplay. He added that the game's puzzles require thought unlike other action/platform games, and that the game's objectives weren't clear until after the first few levels. Casamassina praised the game's transparency effects, anti-aliasing, mipmapping, and scaling rotations.[3] IGN described anticipation for the game as "tremendous",[6] and described the game's market as "younger gamers and 2D fans".[4]
Notes and references
- Notes
- References
- ^ "Nintendo to Publish Mischief Makers". IGN. 1997. Retrieved 2007-05-01.
- ^ Theo: I've been captured by the Evil Empire? What are you gonna do to me? / Evil Clancer: We were ordered to take you to our Emperor! That's all we were told!! Treasure (1997-10-01). Mischief Makers (Nintendo 64). Nintendo.
- ^ a b c d e f g Casamassina, Matt (October 1, 1997). "Mischief Makers". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on May 5, 2014. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
{{cite web}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ a b c IGN Staff (August 5, 1997). "Griffey, Mischief Makers Trade Spots". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on May 7, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
{{cite web}}
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ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ a b c d e f g h i IGN Staff. "Treasure Talks Yuke Yuke". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on May 5, 2014. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ a b c "Nintendo to Publish Mischief Makers". IGN. Ziff Davis. June 10, 1997. Archived from the original on May 7, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
{{cite web}}
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missing|last1=
(help); Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ IGN Staff (June 23, 1999). "Unearthing Treasure for N64". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on May 7, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ "Mischief Makers for Nintendo 64". GameRankings. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ a b "Mischief Makers (N64: 1997)". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on March 4, 2009. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ McCall, Scott. "Mischief Makers Review". Allgame. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
- ^ "Mischief Makers". Game Informer. November 1997. p. 82. Archived from the original on 1998-01-22. Retrieved 2012-09-26.
{{cite news}}
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/|archive-url=
timestamp mismatch; 1998-01-21 suggested (help); Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ Bartholow, Peter (1998-04-17). "Mischief Makers Review for Nintendo 64". GameSpot. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
External links