Swamp Thing on the Game Boy is awful. I will do my best to find something nice to say, but man, is it bad. I get what they were trying to do. It just feels like the ideas they had didn’t work.
This was also released on the NES. This made me think that it was just a bad port. Then I did some research, and it turns out both versions of the game are terrible.
One would think that a game based on a superhero would be good. You have the comics from which you can draw a story, and you can see what the powers are supposed to be. Granted, you might have to change them to make the game challenging.
Swamp Thing isn’t a challenging game. It is a bad game made by a company, THQ, which has made several bad games.
TLDR: Bad controls, bad gameplay, bad game.
History
Swamp Thing is a DC property. He’s a cool character from what I’ve read. I’ve only read about him in a few comics, and I’ve never read his stand-alone comics. Based on what I’ve learned about him, I think he should be way more powerful than he is in this game.
Both the NES and the Game Boy versions were released in 1992. There was going to be a Genesis/Mega Drive version, but that was mercifully canceled. Maybe the Genesis game could have been better, but I’m assuming it would just be a 16-bit version of the same terrible game.
This was based on the Swamp Thing animated series. I guess I missed that one when I was a kid. There were too many cartoons for me to watch, and I liked running through the woods pretending sticks were guns or swords. Maybe that would have been a better game?
This is just another in the long line of bad licensed video games. I’m not sure how they kept screwing up superheroes as they did.
Gameplay
It’s tedious, confusing, and bad. For starters, you have to hurt yourself to attack enemies. I have no idea why anyone thought this was a good idea. It’s like having Wolverine’s claws hurt him!
This is a side-scroller where you have to kill bad guys and move from left to right. There is some variety in the locations, which I’ll get into later.
Part of the problem was THQ using the Bart vs. The Space Mutants engine to make the game. They took a game with inadequate controls and used it to make more games with bad controls. Now that I know this, I might want to check if this had the awful super jump where you have to press both A and B simultaneously.
You have to deal with a watered-down version of the NES game on the Game Boy. I have read that the Game Boy is better than the NES version. This makes me feel terrible for those who play the NES version.
You’re doing things in the game that should be fun. It should be somewhat familiar to you. Swamp Thing doesn’t feel right, though. Nothing you do feels the way it should.
Visuals
The title screen looks good on the Game Boy. I think the picture of Swamp Thing looks like something that could have been in the comic books back in the 90s. The rest of the game is either nothing special, or it is just bad.
I think the background and foreground look okay. It’s nothing special, and it doesn’t do anything to make the game stand out.
I have no idea what I’m fighting in this game. They look like the rejected sprites from every Color Dreams game. I understand that they had to come up with something; I just have no idea what I’m fighting.
Maybe it’s the technical limitations of the Game Boy. It could be that they needed something and just tossed these in. I really don’t know.
The power-ups are also a mystery to me. If I had the manual, things might have been more apparent. However, I don’t, and I can’t figure out what I’m collecting. The health items look the same as the points. It makes it very confusing.
For a Game Boy game, Swamp Thing looks okay. It’s nothing special. I think they could have done better in 1992, but maybe some other things were going on.
Alternatives
Any other side-scroller is better than this. I would rather play the TMNT games, the Super Mario Land games, or the Contra: The Alien Wars.
3/10 This is the worst game I’ve played on the Game Boy so far.
Pros
- It looks okay
- I can’t think of another Swamp Thing game
- It let me know that there was a cartoon about Swamp Thing
Cons
- The controls are bad
- Attacking hurts you
- It’s hard to tell what the power-ups are
- It’s a boring game
Conclusion
This is another in a long line of lousy superhero games. I think there could have been a good game in here. It’s not a terrible concept.
If you look at the Batman games, they seem to have gotten it right. The X-Men games were good once you got to the Genesis and the SNES. There was just something about the superhero games on the NES. Very few of them managed to be good.
Swamp Thing probably should have been a beat ‘em-up. I think that genre works better for superhero games. Granted, I like that style of games more than side-scrollers.
I’m not sure what Swamp Things’ powers are, but he should probably be more powerful than he is in this game. It’s kind of like the Silver Surfer game on NES. You have these two incredibly powerful superheroes, and the games they are in suck.
This is just a bad game. It’s not the only one on the Game Boy or the NES. Maybe I’ll check out the cartoon at some point. It might be better than this game is.