Flimbos Quest

Copyright : System 3 | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Professor Franz Dandruff has kidnapped Dewdroplandâ??s beauty queen, the fair Pearly. Only one man can foil the dastardly Dandruffâ??s diabolical designs, Flimbo, hero of this tale and the person faced with the daunting task of storming Dandruffâ??s manor and rescuing Pearly.

Graphics

With big colourful, cartoony graphics, Flimboâ??s Quest owes a great deal of its visual style to Rainbow Islands and has been borrowed heavily from by the creators of Super Cauldron. The characters, both good and bad, are beyond cute and look fantastic.

Sadly though, the amount of detail and shading has the one drawback of making proceedings a little confusing at times as you find Flimbo beginning to merge with the background and the lack of scrolling makes the game feel dated particularly the extremely jerky flick between screens.

A real shame as Flimbo is one of the cutest and most impressive characters ever to grace the CPC and if those flaws couldâ??ve been ironed out â?? he wouldâ??ve been the best. Still good though.

Sound

Blessed with a good title tune, Flimboâ??s Quest also has fairly effective sound effects and although not as good as the C64 version, a game that does not make you want to reach for the volume control. Good.

Gameplay

Unfortunately this is the area were Flimbo really begins to fall down. The gameplay is simple enough: shoot the identified GUM (Genetically Undesirable Mutants â?? The Profâ??s henchmen) to capture a scroll that reveals a letter of a code word that lets you escape on to the next level. There is nothing else to it though and the cuteness of the graphics and gameplay quickly wear off when you realise that all you do is move from screen to screen firing at anything that moves.

A lack of variety in GUMs also means that this becomes more tedious than it has to â?? the odd difficult to kill mutant wouldâ??ve been nice or a vicious onslaught requiring lightning reactions. It never comes though and there is no real tension built up for the player. You can buy add-ons and accessories at any point in the game by entering the shop but thereâ??s no real point to be honestâ?¦

Itâ??s a bad day when the only reason you lose a life is through your own lack of concentration but that is exactly what happens here and I doubt you will want to play this game more than a couple of times after the novelty wears off.

A bit of a letdown, Flimboâ??s Quest couldâ??ve been a contender but proves the old adage that it doesnâ??t matter how good a car looks if the engine doesnâ??t work.