Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. For the last few reviews, I’ve covered some well known NES titles. So this week I decided to go with one of the more lesser known titles in the NES library. A series of sporting events starring one of the world’s most popular beagles. But is this game a hit, or will it leave you saying Good Grief?
Year of Release: 1990
Publisher: Kemco
Genre: Sports mini-game compilation
Snoopy is the beloved dog of Charlie Brown, and one of the stars of the Peanuts comic strip. A massively popular character, and an instant celebrity. He’s a comic strip star, a cartoon star, and a commercial dynamo. it was an eventuality that Snoopy would get his own video game. I mean, he is a world war one flying ace. Clearly that gives him credibility for the gaming world. And in 1990, Snoopy would get his shot in the world of gaming. Though, not exactly how one would expect.
In 1988, Kemco still had the rights to published Disney games for the Famicom. So, they would release a Donald Duck video game called… Donald Duck. The game would involve Donald competing against Daisy in several different sporting events. Kemco would eventually plan to release the game for the NES. However they would hit a slight snag. Capcom would soon earn the rights as exclusive publisher for all Disney games for Nintendo, causing Kemco to lose the rights to release Donald Duck outside of Japan. But, as luck would have it, they would quickly snatch up the rights to another cartoon character. That being Snoopy and the Peanuts gang. And two years after the release of Donald Duck, Snoopy’s Silly Sports Spectacular was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
This wouldn’t be the only time this would happen to Kemco. They had previously lost the rights to Roger Rabbit not long after releasing their Famicom game. So, they would soon snatch the rights to Bugs Bunny, and “The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle” was born.
Story
There really isn’t much of a story for this game. As is expected for a lot of these NES sports games. If I were to give this game a story, I’d say that it would involve Snoopy having a sudden interest in competing in the Olympics. However, since beagles can’t compete in the Olympics, he figured “why not make a competition of my own”. Thus, the Silly Sports Spectacular was born.
He called up Woodstock to referee the event, and got a hold of his brother Spike (Remember him?) to be his opponent. But that wasn’t enough. It needed to feel authentic. So, Snoopy got on his plane…
And flew from Cloud USA to Cloud Italy? Huh? eh, screw logic. It’s Joe Cool. That, and maybe this whole event was one of Snoopy’s dreams. That would make another NES game I’ve reviewed for this website that was merely a dream. And hell, I’ve yet to review Little Nemo or Kirby’s Adventure yet.
Gameplay
Snoopy’s Silly Sports Spectacular is broken down to six sporting events. You can choose to play them separately, or compete in the total game. In this mode, you have to play through all six events three times in order to get a high score to beat the world record. The better you do at the events, and the more points scored, the better medal you’ll win at the end of the game.
The first event is the sack race. You’ll compete against Spike as you hop your way to the finish. To jump, you press the A button. But it’s not so simple. The length of your jump is determined by how long you held in the A button before letting go. Quick taps will lead to quick jumps, while longer held presses lead to longer jumps. The trick is to know just how long you should hold the button in to get the best speed so you can win the race.
There are obstacles in the way. Manholes that will flip at random. Should you encounter one of them, you’ll trip and fall, wasting precious time. However, if you should be too far back, Woodstock can give you a push. This though will come at the cost of points. Another thing to pay attention to is the start gun. You can lose by jumping the gun one too many times, so you have that to be careful about as well. It’s a tricky game to deal with, but it’s not impossible to master.
The next event is Boot Throwing. Which, of course, is a variation on the hammer throw. The object is to spin the boot fast enough, and throw it as far as possible. Rotating the D-pad counter-clockwise spins the boot, and pressing A will release it. The better your throw, the better the points. You have two rounds in this competition, with your points being tallied at the end. This one’s one of the easier games to get the hang of, but it can be one of the bigger pains in the thumb. At least for me, since I’ve never been too good at rotating the D-Pad without by fingers aching by the end. But again, that could just be me.
Next is the Pogo. The object of this one is to pogo jump over all of the hurdles to the finish line. Miss just one, and the game is over. Movement is with the D-Pad, and jumping is with A. Timing can be a pain with this one. If you jump at the wrong time, or if you pogo hop too close to the hurdle, you’ll crash. This one can be pretty tricky to get the hang of.
Overboard is up next. This is a joust/slap fight against spike to see who can get knocked off the gondola fist. Tap the A button to attack. The trick is to watch for how the boat rocks back and forth. It can be kinda tricky to determine just when you’ll be able to knock your opponent off the boat, but there shouldn’t be too much trouble getting the hang of this one. It’s less based on luck, and more just spamming A and hoping for the best. I find this one interesting, since in the Donald Duck version, it comes off as Donald and Daisy having some sort of fistfight during a romantic cruise.
Next up, it’s time to deal with the pile of pizza. Snoopy has to carry a wobbly stack of pizzas all the way to the finish line. The more pizzas that make it with you at the end, the better score you’ll receive. But, of course, you can’t just rush into this one. Move too quick, and you’ll drop some of the pizzas. You have to tap the D-Pad very slowly. But not too slowly, because you also have a time limit to deal with. Though, even if you decide to rush the level, you can still end up with a couple pizzas left by the end. So, you can still earn points (though very few) in your hastiness.
And last, but certainly not least, is the River Jump. AKA, the game’s middle finger. The premise is simple enough. It’s your standard pole vault, with Snoopy having to vault his way over a river. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Tapping A will make Snoopy run, and pressing B will plant your pole. You can slip up if you plant it too early, but that’s not the main issue.
The issue is no matter how hard you try, chances are you will never make it to the other side. You’ll plant the pole in the water, and Snoopy will just slip and fall into the water. I have never competed this game. I’m unsure if the landing spot is random, or if it’s a mere pixel sized landing area, but it’s damn near impossible. This one is definitely the hardest video game to master. I liken it to Charlie Brown and the football. No matter how hard you try, it will always feel like Lucy is pulling away your chance at success at the last second.
And that’s all six games. A couple of them are decent, and control well. But the others are insufferable, and are almost impossible to do correctly without a ton of trial and error.
Graphics
The graphics are solid. Snoopy and company are all designed well, and they managed to copy the peanuts look pretty well, despite this game’s past. I also like the backgrounds as well. The game uses the Italian influence quite well, and incorporate plenty of of Italian landmarks like the Roman coliseum and the leaning tower of Piza. Everything looks well done.
Sound
I love this game’s soundtrack. The tracks are all energetic and peppy. They never feel out of place, and add a fun sports game feel to the game. A lack of any Peanuts theme can be excused considering the game’s past, and the sound effects aren’t too annoying. Everything wraps up to a decent audio experience.
Overall thoughts
This is actually a game I used to rent a lot as a kid. Back then, I found it to be one of my favorites, and always had fun with it. Now that I’m older, and a bit wiser, I can say that the nostalgia blindness does not save this game. It is pretty bad.
It tries to incorporate its own Olympic feel, and fails miserably. While the graphics and the music are well done, the controls for most of the games are annoying, and almost difficult to get the hang of. None of the games are all that fun to play, and some of them feel completely broken (I’m looking at you River Jump). There was a lot of interesting ideas, but nothing worked quite how it should have.
If you want a decent sports mini-game compilation, I suggest Track and Field II. While that’s not perfect either, it still handles itself far better than this game. Snoopy’s game is not very silly, not too sporting, and it’s definitely not very spectacular.
Rating: Thumbs Down