Shake Shake! - Mischief Makers

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones! It's that time of the week again where Sin and I bring you another look into a wonderful new game! Yeah... 'New' he says. Okay... Well the truth is this week we haven't had one single noteworthy game that we've played long enough to review, so because we couldn't decide, we're bringing you a review of an old game we've put lots of time into. You can be disappointed in him, he let us down. (I'm the one that let them down!? We play our games together you know! Yes, but you should have played a little less Rocket League, and a little more anything else! Then why didn't you stop me? B-Because! ... Because...) A-Anyway! this week we present to you: Mischief Makers!

Mischief Makers is a fun 2D platforming game from the early days of the N64. That's right, we said it was an old game. We meant that. That's no reason to look down on it though, of course, Sin and I both wanted to play this game for a really long time, and it even exceeded our expectations in terms of quality. It's a fun game to play, probably not for you if you're looking for a challenge but there are ways the game still offers that though at least. I can mention that later though. Yeah the game is relatively easy in terms of a casual playthrough. The levels are pretty short... they have no time limit... and- And if you're worried about taking damage? Don't be. The game gives you so much health even though you really only have one life, you won't be seeing the continue screen all that often. Blue and Green health crystals and Red crystals which are used to buy continues are so unbelievably common throughout the game that you shouldn't need to look at your health bar at all. It's kinda nice that way really, and you especially don't have to worry about having to start the entire game again if you run out of lives because you can pick and work through stages individually, going back to them if you want to and so on... (...You filthy casual...)(What?)

Because what makes more mischief than surfing on people's missiles

The game itself is the story of Marina, a cute green-haired android maid who sets out on an adventure to save her creator after he gets kidnapped by a strange group of aliens. That's basically all the plot there is, and it's very Mario-esque, every time you finally save that idiotic professor he just gets kidnapped again. In fact the last time he gets kidnapped he just accepts it and lets them do it, it's so dumb! It's a 2D platformer Sin! These games don't do plots! Oh yeah? Well maybe they should have tried! Oh shush Sin, honestly you're like impossible to please. Yeah. Oh.. right that's your thing... I forgot that...

All the characters and blocks and stuff have these creepy faces that remind of that painting The Scream...
Creepy...? You don't think they're cute...?

Anyway! The stages themselves are really fun to play, ranging from simple platforming stages, to complex platforming puzzles, each one unique in it's own way. The controls are simple and easy to learn, you can move, jump, grab and boost in all directions. The main thing which sets this game apart from others is that Marina fights by grabbing enemies, parts of enemies, projectiles or whatever and throwing them back. You can also shake anything you grab by double tapping down... And i do man anything, it's a very important mechanic of the game because you use it to activate switches and make bosses vulnerable. It's a very well implemented system and it just feels extremely satisfying to shake the hell out of anything you want... Also I just can't get over how cute Marina's little "Shake shake!" catchphrase is. Boosting is the only reasonable way to really get around because without it Marina doesn't jump high or move fast, but then the problem with boosting is that its a short little burst of speed which you obviously have to really spam to keep up. In fact playing Mischief Makers became so painful Ren and I had to swap who was playing while we were going for our 100% run every half hour or so to rest... If ever there was a game to give me RSI... 

Sometimes I hear Ren calling out stuff like this from his room in the evenings when  he thinks I'm not around...
S-Sin! What are you telling our readers!?

Speaking of 100%... We actually gave up our run about 20 stages in. For us a 100% run would be collecting the Gold Gem from each stage, and getting an A rank for the times. It's actually possible to get S ranks on some stages, but you have to practically be a superhuman or something to get those kinds of times. We started finding a number of stages impossible to get higher than a B on even though we did the stage as perfectly as possible. Yeah at that point Sin got pissed off and quit it. I did not! We did get all the gold gems though! (With the help of a guide...) W-Well yeah I mean a lot of them are hidden in random NPCs and completely un...obvious... places! I mean let's be serious here you get one of them by running the 100m dash in under 11 seconds. It's true they're well hidden but that's just good game design in a way, you have to collect as many as possible for the best ending so why shouldn't they be well hidden, so only die-hard players can see it? You've made your point...

She's super cute but this guy never learnt that you don't EVER hold her hand... or let her hold yours, I mean.

Mischief Makers is wonderfully simple in nature with the goal of every platforming stage just being to get to the end. Mini-bosses you have to grab and throw at the ground repeatedly after shaking them for their Gold Gem, and main bosses you tend to fight by grabbing something like their arm and throwing it back to them. Gold Gem is yours if you somehow do it without taking damage but that's really tough. It's a game that takes a lot of pain and dedication to do well, so while it's easy for a casual playthrough, it's very difficult for anything other than that. And that, I suppose is something that makes Mischief Makers something truly special. Sin... Not like you to give a game praise like that... S-Shut up Ren! The Professor you're saving is clearly a disgusting pervert anyway so this game gets a 1/10 regardless! End of story! Hmph!

Haha... We really hope you enjoyed our little look back on the past with this review. Weeks like this could happen again if we don't have specific new games to review or something like that. We really hope you'll enjoy hearing about some of our favourite old games with us too though, of course. Well, that's all for this week so goodnight everyone! And remember... We love you all!

...Oh... Sin... You did- I SAID SHUT UP REN!