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| Probably not something like this. |
Before this character became huge on the big screen due to the countless number of Shrek movies, he starred in a role that was a bit less dramatic. If you don't know who Puss n Boots is, he's a cat who essentially gets inherited by the youngest son of a miller and asks for a pair of boots. He then does some random stuff and eventually kills an ogre that changes into a mouse. Some strange French literary tale. Whatever, moving on.
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| Electro Brain Corp? |
Puss N Boots, the NES game, stars the cat running around the world to various locations. In fact, the first screen shows the various areas that you’ll visit: The West, Ocean, New York, Liberty, London, Space Wars, and Arabia… What the fuck? First off, what are these areas even supposed to represent. Space Wars? So I’m going to space? Let's just take a step back here: You're a cat, wearing boots, and going into outer space to have a war? Sure.
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| That's the boomerang, it's really on target isn't it? |
The first level is The West. Now of course this is just a terrible reproduction of the Old West with flying horseshoes, cat outlaws, and weird bubble things as your enemies. Now the first issue I have here is that Pero, the cat hero, jumps like 20 feet in the air. He literally jumps on top of the houses in this old western town with ease. Of course, if I was getting the shit beaten out of me by flying horseshoes, I might jump that high too just to get out of the damn way. So Pero walks way too fucking slow. The only option that you have to move more quickly is to jump forward. For whatever reason, the leap you perform rockets you forward and you propel through the levels much more quickly. Your attacks consist of a gun, a bomb, and some boomerang shaped thing. I really only ever used the gun, it’s got the longest range and best attack pattern of all three.
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| Classy. |
So after jumping through the first stage, you end up at The Ocean. Like there’s only one in existence, even though the map clearly shows you in Hawaii. In this level you travel by boat and end up scooting around in a submarine. Not only is the first and only level with a submarine, but it's also one of the few levels with a boss. It’s some frog fuck. Arabia, the next level, is pretty self-explanatory besides the car you drive around in.
After Arabia we somehow end up in some airplane flying over some nondescript mountains. This is the Space Wars level. Now wouldn’t you expect some kind of spaceship battle far above Earth for an area called Space Wars? I just didn’t fucking get it at first, but I think I might have deduced what the title means: it’s a war for space, like in trying to expand your middle-eastern country, not a war that takes place out past the Earth’s atmosphere. At least that's the best I can come up.
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| This is the boss of London, which makes all kinds of sense. |
Stage 5 is London. This level is again pretty straightforward, like the first level, but here you’re dealing with cats dressed up as British Foot Guards rather than cats dressed up as Cowboys. Big fucking difference, right? For whatever random ass reason there’s a boss at the end of this level too. How the fuck were the programmers this inconsistent? We have five levels and only two bosses? Each level should have it’s own boss, it’s just gaming 101!
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| Little known fact: Liberty is blurry. |
Liberty is the next area, wherever the hell it is. Here you’re flying around in a hot air balloon dodging lightning and pirate balloons. That’s about all there is, you fly around in the balloon until you get to the end of the level. /sigh
The final stage is New York, and it seems like the game programmers spent all of their time on this last level. This is the only level that’s non-linear. You enter the Statue of Liberty or some shit and wander around moving through various doors that pop you out in different places. I spent maybe half an hour before I figured out that I was basically going in circles here. Again I’m seeing this problem with inconsistency. Why make every stage linear and then create this fucking maze at the end that doesn’t fit with anything else that we’ve previously seen in the game. Yes it’s unique, but why do you have to fucking trick the gamer?
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| This just doesn't look fair, you're like half their size! |
The final boss is actually two bosses. Yes, the game ends up not putting bosses in most of the levels, and then puts two of them at the end of the final level. Makes total sense right? These two actually gave me some trouble as they’re really fucked up compared to all of the other bosses in the game. You can only damage one of them at a time, but they’re both running around on screen during the whole fight. Also, whichever one you’re damaging you can’t touch or you’ll take damage. Even with the added confusion, these two bosses take just a few tries to defeat. With that, Pero climbs to the top of the Statue of Liberty and the game ends.
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| Now that's a good endgame screen. |
“Count Gruemon, a notorious swine, hated mice with a passion. One day, he discovered a mouse in his castle. Frustrated and irate, Count Gruemon ordered Puss 'N Boots (Pero) to find and destroy the mouse. However, Pero was a kind-hearted cat and had become friends with the mouse, and so, helped the little creature to escape. In a fit of anger, Count Gruemon, aided by Dr. Gari-gari, a fiendish scientist wolf, sent Pero on a perilous time-travel journey around the world and into the past.
Pero must locate and defeat Count Gruemon and the mad Dr. Gari-gari, and use their time machine to get home - or be stuck in the past forever. To make matters worse, the Cat Kingdom has sent Killers after Pero because he helped a mouse and thereby violated Cat Kingdom Law. Pero must travel to exotic lands and overcome many hazards, but can he defeat the combined might of the diabolical Count Gruemon, Dr. Gari-gari, and the Killers?”
Right.
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