Madagascar [GBA/DS]

Madagascar is one of dozens of Vicarious Visions licensed platformers for 2nd and 3rd gen Nintendo handhelds: VV buttered their bread in the aughts churning through Dreamworks and Pixar properties. And while this standard side-scroller brings a little charm to the expected collectathon platforming, it fails to follow through on its more charming ideas and characters—and it will stop being fun long before you unlock its somewhat-brutal bonus stages.

The main game follows the five characters from the titular animated film as they battle leopardlike baddies and try to find their way back to civilization. Each of your freely swappable characters—a double jumping lion, a shy giraffe with a ranged attack, a swimming & stomping hippo, a crawling zebra, and a stealthy penguin—has a somewhat enjoyable, janky feel. Hey, these former zoo captives aren’t seasoned adventurers—they’re just doing the best they can! And while character-swapping a la Mega Man’s buster cannon is novel, traversing the fairly large levels becomes a chore quickly given just how often you switch between characters with the L/R shoulders. Constant switching mitigates the blind jumps, instakill water hazards and off-screen enemies that are the only real sources of danger, encouraging a taxing play style that feels both haphazard and cautious. The 11 platforming levels fittingly become increasingly complicated but fail to get memorable.

Most of the playthrough challenge lies in finding all of the tokens strewn about each level, 1120 in all. You can’t 100% the game on your first playthrough because of a handful of power unlocks (such as the hippo gaining a dive). The stages are pathed and populated in a manner where you’ll almost certainly miss one or two tokens on some replays because of nonchalant token placement. Hit boxes range from skatey to frame-skippy, and cheap shots will get old fast through a full 6-8-hour play-through.

The exceptions to the token grind are a handful of peppy stealth levels, where Marty the zebra and Skipper the penguin must take cover in crates and under tables to avoid the sightlines of humans on the lookout. Taking cover triggers a nifty scale-out effect during cover allowing the player to better survey the stage for threats as they avoid detection. These stages are a little relentlessly designed: I could see the intended audience losing interest quickly after failing the cargo ship level one too many times. Outside of these welcome diversions from formula, VV fills out the main quest with tutorial stages, the expected GBA “rhythm” mini-games, and some generally unfun bonus stages that rehash level concepts with (frankly) challenging target times.

Production values are above averagish: sprites are well-animated but stage design remains cluttered. In the more colorful stages, your eyes will have to adjust to the appearance of hazards (the designers must have recognized the limitations of their art style, as these “glisten” to differentiate themselves from foreground textures). The cut scenes are cute, which makes it all the more shocking that VV failed to include a gallery for fans of the movie (who, you know, would ask their parents for the licensed game).

Overall, there’s far better licensed titles on the GBA that understand their audience much better.