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MR. NUTZ Company: Ocean Released: August 1994 Genre: Side-Scroller Graphics: 8.5 Control: 8.0 Sound/Music: 6.5 Storyline: 5.0 Review by: Corbie Dillard ©2008 SUPER-NES.COM

As I've mentioned before, there was no shortage of side scrollers released for the Super Nintendo system. The good side of all of this is that we did see some outstanding side scrollers. The downside is we also saw some real garage. Although Mr. Nutz has some glaring flaws, I have to say it was a fun side scroller that had some decent play control and above all a serious challenge. Don't let the cute look of this game fool you. It's one of the most difficult side scrollers you can get for the Super NES but I think it has enough good qualities to warrant any platformer fan's purchase. This was a game that I honestly didn't expect much from so it was quite a surprise when I finally got to play through it. Graphically Mr. Nutz is fairly impressive. Not only does each level have a huge amount of detail and color, but the backgrounds are among some of the best I've seen on an SNES side scroller. Once again I would've like to have seen some parallax scrolling, but given the great detail and color in the backgrounds it's hard to complain. All of the enemies and characters in the game are also very well drawn. Everything has a real cartoon-style look to it giving the impression that everything was pulled out of a fairy tale storybook. Animation is definately above-average and the entire game has a crisp and well-defined look to it that I just wasn't expecting from this game to begin with. If I were to compare Mr. Nutz's soundtrack to another game it would have to be The Magical Adventure starring Mickey Mouse. In fact, if I didn't know better and I heard this music playing in the background I would swear it was Magical Adventure. It's got a lot of cutesy tunes and happy-go-lucky music to go along with the storybook look of the game, but some tunes are considerably short in length and they repeat a lot. This was really my only gripe with an otherwise solid game soundtrack. Sound effects are minimal, as in most side scrollers, but they do otheir job and fit in well with the light-hearted mood of this game. One high point to the music is definately the boss scenes as it was one of my favorite tunes of them all. Overall another solid effort when I wasn't expecting it. If there's one word that I would use to sum up the gameplay in Mr. Nutz, it's simple. Not simple meaning easy, but more simple meaning basic. You control a cute little squirrel and you have most of your basic side scroller-type moves. Mr. Nutz can walk, run, jump, swish his tail, stomp enemies, and even throw acorns. Quite a few of the reviews I've read for this game criticize the play control as being "too loose". I think it actually makes playing the game's pinpoint platforming portions (try saying that fast three times) a lot easier than a more tight control system would. You're gonna spend most of your time dealing with enemies in this game and there's tons of variety in this area. While most enemies can be stomped, some enemies are in tough to reach places and will require careful aim of your acorns in order to dispatch them. I went into this game expecting to breeze through it in one sitting and was quickly surprised at the high level of difficulty the game presents. Luckily, if you're having trouble playing the game with the 3 hits you start the game with, you can go to the options screen and select to take 4 or even 5 hits before you're squirrel bites the dust. Trust me, you're gonna need all the hits you can get as each time you die in a level, whether your near the beginning or right at the very end, you have to start all the way back at the beginning. This can be a little frustrating at times but not nearly as frustrating as when you run out of lives and have to continue. Then you get to start at the beginning of the world, which if you're at the boss on area 5, you have to go back a long way once your arsenal of squirrels is used up. This will also cause some frustration. As I said, Mr. Nutz is not an easy game and took me three days to finally beat it, but it's a very satisfiying type of difficulty. If you like a good platforming/side scrolling game with a fairly high degree of difficulty then you're in for a treat with Mr. Nutz. It's guaranteed to keep you on your toes from beginning to end. Great visuals, a nice if slightly repetative soundtrack, and some really great platforming action all come together to form what is one of the more enjoyable side scrollers I've played in awhile. If you're a fan of this type of game don't overlook this game because of its' appearance or because it's not from one of the bigger name companies, as if you do you'll be missing a hell of a fun game.