James Bond Jr. (SNES)

Original Release: 1992
Developer: Grey Matter
Publisher: THQ
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Another game based on the James Bond Jr. cartoon, this one developed by Grey Matter. While sometimes different games of the same name shares some elements, such as level themes or rough story, this one is completely different to the James Bond Jr. NES game. The SNES version is a mixture of a platformer and a scrolling shooter.

One interesting thing is this didn’t even start out as a James Bond Jr. game, it was originally a SNES remake of Grey Matter’s NES Captain Planet and the Planeteers game, but due to company changes an license issues, they ended up re-tooling the work they had done into a new licensed game.

You start off in a temple level, hunting for the villain Dr. Derange, you barely have time to figure out the controls before you reach the first vehicle segment – and I’m not exaggerating about the time, it really is less than 20 seconds.

You might expect a short but simple minigame, but it’s surprisingly long. If you played it perfectly, it will take 5 minutes, which doesn’t sound long, but you will die. A lot. There’s a ton of projectiles flying around and one hit kills you. You can get a shield that will protect you from a few hits, however that doesn’t protect you from the environment, with some very narrow sections to navigate, slightly bumping any pixel will kill you.

Your helicopter moves extremely fast, and the sprites are so large that you don’t have any time to react to anything. Instead, this section is a long trial and error as you get a bit further each time, having to memorise the entire route to react before things appear on screen. You have two weapons: a shot that fires completely forward.

Back to the main gameplay, you now have three acts of a temple level, punching natives and SCUM soldiers. Exploring the level you can find dart guns and explosive drinks cans to use as grenades. along with other powerup, such as springy shoes to jump higher.

The gameplay itself is pretty solid, and the graphical style is quite nice. There are hidden areas to explore but the route to the end is fairly simple. One problem is, once again, the size of the sprites. James Bond Jr is kept firmly in the middle of the screen throughout the levels, which means the gaps for jumps reach the edge of the screen, often with enemies hanging on the edge, not visible until you’re mid-jump, yet also so close to the edge that if you don’t use your dart gun before jumping, you’ll take damage.

Once you defeat the boss, it’s onto the next stage. All three stages follow the same structure: a vehicle section followed by three short platforming levels. This one is a speedboat section as you head to Venice, and this part is a lot of fun, dodging gondolas, shooting enemies and making jumps, collecting a power up that makes you jump even further. At this point I was thinking that, after the rough start, fun vehicles with some decent platforming would make the rest of this an alright game.

And then you get the inevitable sewer level, notorious for always being terrible levels. This one is no exception, with confusing layouts, really annoying bats and lots of awkward jumps to make. While the developers avoided the same problem with getting stuck in levels as the NES game by having the shoe power-ups be permanent, they end up making the same mistake here. In this level are ice power ups, these are limited in number.

These are used to freeze pools of toxic waste, allowing you to cross over. Use too many against enemies (or use them on the wrong pools) and you’ll have to restart. There’s also some really annoying door traps. They’re just a grey line and if you walk over them, they repeatedly slam James Bond Jr, draining his health.

Get through there and you reach the next area, this vehicle section is a plane which functions exactly the same as the helicopter in the first stage. It’s not quite as frustrating as the first one, so at least it’s over quicker. You’re then on the final level.

Which, naturally, is a slippery ice level, because everyone loves those. Thankfully, part way though you get some rocket boots, letting you fly around the level, along with being able to find a ring that fires lasers that help immensely with the final boss.

James Bond Jr. is an average platformer, but hampered by visibility and a few awful vehicle levels. It looks quite nice, with some good animation throughout, but for the most part is a fairly forgetful game.