Whomp 'Em Some More
Whomp 'Em Some More
Welcome to the second part of the Whomp 'Em feature. When we last left everyone's favorite little heathen, he had defeated an evil bowling ball monster, thus completing his second proper level and earning the Dart totem. In this half of the article, Soaring Eagle will square off against smoke inhalation, mentally retarded snails, and an ice cavern of dubious nature. Along the way, he might even learn the true meaning of love... but he doesn't. Anyway, let's continue on with our journey through this bizarre little game.
This level is called Ice Ritual, although I have no fucking clue why. While there are rocky blue are gray surfaces that kinda sorta almost resemble ice, they aren't ICY. Secret Cliff had all sorts of smooth, slippery surfaces but this level doesn't even have ONE. But what this level lacks in ice, it more than makes up for with the giant eyeballs that eerily loom in the background. I don't why they're there, but they definitely creepy me out when I played this game back in the day. As far ice-related enemies go, there are none. Instead, you get to fight dozens and dozens of flying hands and floating masks. As it turns out, both Ice Ritual and Secret Cliff are victims of name changes. In Saiyuuki World 2, Secret Cliff was called Realm of Metal and Ice Ritual was known as Realm of Darkness. This would explain why Ice Ritual is so damn creepy and Secret Cliff is filled with spikes and robots. Jaleco apparently decided that these level themes didn't mesh well with a game about a Native American, so they changed the names. And yet, they DIDN'T fucking alter the actual levels at all.
After fighting your way through all the rich Native American iconography of the Ice Ritual, you will arrive at the Ice Guardian, the most thoroughly Japanese boss that we've seen so far. The Ice Guardian vaguely reminds me of the Ceti eels from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but it bears a much greater resemblance to the Shadow Statue from Ninja Gaiden. The boss is one of the more annoying guys that you fight in the game, his main attack involves him splitting into four copies of himself. The copies shoot out of his original body at 90 degree angles and then retract and reform into the original body. To make matters worse, Generic Japanese Demon Thing almost always goes into this move once he's been hit. But even though Soaring Eagle is getting his ass kicked pretty bad in the screenshots above, this actually a pretty easy battle to win. Soaring Eagle's downward thrust gives him a little bit of bounce and it will allow him to safely hit the Ice Guardian and some of his copies. As his life total approaches zero, Ice Bastard will turn red which signifies that he's not fucking around anymore. When he turns red, be warned that you MUST NOT LET HIM HIT YOU. If he hits you while he's pissed, he will steal one of your magic potions and use it to restore some of his life. You really, really don't want that to happen, so stick with the downward thrust and finish the fucker off. Once he's gone, you'll be awarded the Cloud totem.
Surprisingly, the level called Fire Test is actually chock full of lava, flame jets, and firebirds. There are even some evil orange mushrooms thrown in for good measure. This is a textbook platformer level, filled with ladders, easily avoided hazards, and non-threatening baddies. This level is so incredibly pedestrian that it makes the Cutman level from Mega Man look like one of the later levels from Castlevania III.
Conveniently enough, Fire Test is protected by a Fire Guardian. The Fire Guardian has two forms, neither of which is particularly difficult to hit. His smoke form hovers around in a circular pattern while his fire form hops around in a very fast and very predictable sequence. If you're impatient and you have a magic potion or two, you can forego dodging and just pound the bastard with your spear until he's dead. Just for fun, let's see if you can guess which one of the remaining totems you win for beating the Fire Guardian. The choices are:
The correct answer is D. If you did not guess D, please go into the other room and tell your parent, legal guardian, or babysitter that you are looking at websites that are not age appropriate. Also, please be sure to always look both ways before crossing the street. Thank you.
Welcome to Magic Forest, the fifth of the six selectable levels. This level is filled with flying pink elephant bees, giant pillbugs, inbred snails, bouncy leaves, and comically large dandelion seeds. This level was known as Realm of Decay in the Japanese game, a name which is actually LESS accurate in describing this level. This level is filled with plants and bugs; I don't fucking see dead bodies, condemned buildings or even compost piles anywhere. Of course, Magic Forest itself isn't as accurate a title for this level as Forest of Total Gayness would have been. As I play through this game, I can't help but notice that the enemy placement is pretty sparse in most of the levels. Sacred Woods and Ice Ritual have a decent amount of baddies, but the other four levels prefer to distract you with pointless jumping puzzles.
Much like the Fire Test boss, the Magic Guardian has two forms. However, he cannot switch between them. Magic Guardian starts off as a cocoon. In this form, he drops from the canopy above and tries to crush Soaring Eagle. As you might expect, this form isn't particularly threatening; just dodge and counterattack. Once you've taken away about half of the Guardian's life bar, the cocoon explodes releasing an evil mothman. Or maybe it's an evil butterfly, I don't really care. When this happens, the Guardian also regains some life. In this form, the Magic Guardian swoops around like one might expect a winged insect to do. Whomp him with your spear and eventually you'll win. Don't be too reckless though, because just like the Ice Guardian, Magic Guardian will attempt to steal one of your magic potions when it nears its death. When you win, you'll get Web.
Water Test is the last of the six levels on your map and unfortunately, it's also one of the least impressive. There's water, ice, and not much else. There's some more of those snails from the Magic Forest and some fraudulent Octoroks. There's also some fucked guy that looks like a walking ice cube with sunglasses. I particularly enjoy how there's ice here and none in that stupid Ice Ritual level. I know I already explained that Ice Ritual was renamed from Realm of Darkness, but still amuses me that it never occurred to Jaleco during the porting process that there was more ice in Water Test than in "Ice Ritual". Fucking morons.
As it turns out, the Water Guardian is a giant pink frog with a cape. I don't know why, I don't want to know why, and I don't want to play this game anymore. This guy is a bitch. He bounces around like a motherfucker and his hard to dodge. He also the unfortunate ability to turn into a blue snake and bounce around even more frenetically than he does as a frog. To make matters worse, he can only be hurt in his frog form. The good news is that his attacks are all pretty weak, so just tough it out and hit him when you can. For killing the Water Guardian, you get the Ice Crystal totem.
After Soaring Eagle clears the six main levels, a mysterious light shines down from the sky. Soaring Eagle then ascends into the sky where he is given the final totem: Death Branch. I presume he gets it because Jesus loves him and he's free from all sin, but I never took a class on world religions. Jesus loves Injuns, right? Isn't that why He invented moonshine and buffalo? Upon obtaining Death Branch, Soaring Eagle immediately enters the last level: Final Test.
Final Test is set in the clouds and as a Catholic, I have no choice but to assume that like Bill & Ted before him, Soaring Eagle has somehow conned his way into Christian Heaven. This level is home to dozens and dozens of miniaturized versions of the six prior level guardians. This level will challenge you to use most, but not all, of the totems you've acquired; Web and Ice Crystal are still entirely useless. As you fight your way through this level, make sure to watch your life total. Your goal is to make it to the end boss with a full lifebar and at least one magic potion. If you don't, you will almost certainly lose. This level is abnormally long and hard compared to the other levels and if you die then you'll have to start it from the beginning. So be cautious as you fight your way upwards through the increasingly dark sky to the Final Guardian. Prepare to meet your final foe...
This game has almost no plot, so it's pretty difficult to guess as to what the Final Guardian might be. As it turns out, it's another generic Japanese demon guy. Frankly, I'm disappointed. After fighting my way to an unknown destination miles above the Earth's surface and possibly in outer space, I was really hoping to fight the sun or at least a constellation. Oh well, at least it's bigger and meaner than the Ice Guardian. Before you can fight him, you must defeat six monsters from the previous stages, including a grizzly bear and that weird ice cube guy. Once his minions are dead, Final Guardian will light up and begin fighting you himself. Final Guardian teleports around and summons energy balls to damage you. The only effective way to hurt him is with Death Branch, so if you don't have any magic potions then you are absolutely fucked. Dodge the Final Guardian's attacks as best you can and hit him right after he reappears a teleport. Don't try and fire off too many shots at once because you still lose life even if you miss. Since Final Guardian teleports, you are also going to have run around to prevent him from touching you inappropriately. If you manage to hit Final Guardian twelve times, he'll go down faster than Tara Reid after tequila shots. Congratulations, you've won!
Once the death blow has struck, the evil boss guy falls apart like he's just been pumped full of lead. If you have a light gun, you can pretend that you're shooting him. Actually, don't do that because it's more than a little pathetic. With the bad guy defeated, you travel back down to Earth and give the seven totems to your best friend, a giant magic talking totem pole. They never actually *say* that the totem pole can talk, but it's totally implied. Nothing really happens after that, except the credits. Then the game resets and you wonder why you played.
Whomp 'Em is actually a lot less fun than I remember it being. With the notable exception of the last level, the game is pretty fucking easy. I had rented this game one time back in the day, and it successfully fulfilled its duties as a rental game. It was easy enough that I was able to beat it before it had to go back to the store but it managed to keep me busy for three or four hours one rainy Saturday. This game is not so terrible as to be unplayable, but it is incredibly mediocre. It seems like developers wanted to do more than they were capable of doing, as evidenced by the totems. In a good platformer, additional weapons enhance gameplay. But in Whomp 'Em, the totems are all under-utilized due to the game's rather basic level designs. That, and the regional changes that Jaleco made were too few and too silly to be of any real use. In the end, I'd still recommend this game if only for the novelty factor. After all, how many game let you play as an Indian.
DISCLAIMER: The article that you have just read used the word Injun several times for comedic effect. If you are easily offended by racial slurs, you probably should not have read this feature. If this article has upset you in anyway, please e-mail me and I will tell you to go fuck yourself.
Posted by: Syd Lexia
09/09/05
