Title : Beauty and the Beast : Roar of the Beast
Publisher : Sunsoft
Developer : Software Creations
Genre : Platformer
Players : 1 Player
Release Date : 1993
Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $5-$10
Title : Beauty and the Beast : Belle's Quest
Publisher : Sunsoft
Developer : Software Creations
Genre : Platformer
Players : 1 Player
Release Date : 1993
Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $5-$10
I'll be the first to admit that I was a huge fan of any Disney-theme game that came out for the 16-bit consoles. Most of them were pretty damn good, and ones that actually come to mind are Aladdin, The Lion King, and Toy Story. When you were a kid, you most likely begged your parents to go out and rent and/or buy the games when they came out. They were that good.
Unfortunately, not all Disney games are created equal. Enter, the Beauty and the Beast saga of games for the SEGA GENESIS.
Right off the bat, you can tell they were trying to please two markets at once with these games, and that just tells you that the production value is going to be absolutely shoddy. When you're releasing two games, and catering one to target boys, while the other to target girls, and you're producing them at the same time it's an absolute rush-fest. I don't even know why they needed to release two games in the first place. Couldn't they build one game where you just alternate controls of particular characters? One level you could be Belle, and the next you could be Beast. I don't know, that's just me. I'm not a game developer, but I think that would have worked out better.
I'll breeze through both games, but let me tell you, I'd much rather play as the freaking furniture than these two characters ever again. Come on...Lumiere blowing fireballs at people? That's pretty damn epic.
Be our guest, be our guest, I'll put this torture to the test.....
Playing both these games at the same time really goes to show how they basically did a copy paste of the gameplay with different main characters. Even the introduction scene before the game starts is the same thing. You either have Belle and Beast dancing across the screen in Belle's Quest, or Beast stamping away all in a huff in Roar of the Beast.
And seriously, Beast. You can't give us a smile or anything? We ARE playing YOUR game for Christ's sake. Give us a break. Putting us through hell. I HOPE YOUR LAST ROSE PETAL FALLS!
Well, let's start off with Belle's Quest....if you can't even call it that. It pretty much follows the storyline from the movie. You know, Gaston wants to marry Belle, Belle says "hell, no" then she goes off to the woods and finds Beast's Castle, and falls in love with the hairy man-beast, and says to herself "Hey, he's a gentle giant, let's get married." (run on sentence, no?) Some furniture dances, and there's some singing tea cups from Murder She Wrote and then there's some fighting a la Frankenstein's monster and then BOOM - Beast turns human..true love sorta deal.
You'll pretty much be doing that in this game, in the most BORING possible manner imaginable.
I tell you, the only reason why I remotely give any sort of bonus points toward this game it's because of the music and the graphics. Visually it's astounding. The characters are as close as they can get from the movie, and the animations are really quite fluid. Even the level design was top notch, and I'm just talking about the actual imagery, not the way the levels are crafted. That was garbage lol. Although some levels were quite repetitive, the design was very reminiscent of the film
The music is pulled straight from the movie in some well done chip-tune style mash up. I admit it, I was whistling themes from Beauty and the Beast while playing this game.
So admittedly, they did a good job creating the Disney atmosphere for this one. Props for that. Except for the annoying sound effects...Belle was one noisy woman in this game. Everything she touches she just starts crying.
Moving on to the gameplay...*sighs* I just have to shake my head on this one. You really don't do much in this game. They call it an action platformer, but it's really not. You don't do ANYTHING in this game. It's a lot of Belle, walking around, getting lost, and talking to random characters that appear solving a lot of text based puzzles in order to move on to the next area. Some areas DO have enemies, but don't expect Belle to do anything to defend herself. She just cries....
The puzzles are unfortunately not interesting at all, and are so simplistic to solve, it's basically like you're just tapping your way through the movie. BUT, at least you get to do the epic ballroom dance. Yeah...that's part of the game...successfully dancing with Beast. BOY, OH BOY! The only decent level out of the four in this game (I'm not even joking, there are only 4), is the horse riding level. Forgot the name of that horse, but you have to ride him through the woods to escape the wolves. That was pretty cool, but it lasted all but a few seconds and it was actually pretty annoying to control.
Besides the music and the visuals, the game really has nothing to offer. It's dull and unimaginative and doesn't really qualify as a game. Sure it's got a life meter, and a score at the top, but are you really doing anything? No, you're not.
Now picture the same game as before, but this time you get to play as the Beast who is absolutely PISSED OFF that forest creatures are in his castle. You know, because one of them can knock over his rose case and then he's pretty much screwed. As Beast, you can actually attack things now. WOW! Actual gameplay! You can either swipe or jump, but there is also one extra feature that you can use three times per level. Your mighty BEAST ROAR!
HA! Get it? Roar of the Beast? And you can roar..how clever. The Beast Roar allows you to basically clear the screen of enemies if you ever find yourself having difficulty with them. And if you do, that's a problem with you more than the game. This is practically made for two-year-olds.
Just like Belle's Quest, the visuals are really quite good. Beast really moves around like in the movie, and lumbers through the hallways of his castle looking absolutely peeved. The roars are actually quite entertaining to pull off as it reminds me of the scene from the movie. Too bad this doesn't really follow the movie at all, besides where you rescue Belle and the woods and fight Gaston at the end. OOPS spoiler.
Not sure why they didn't pull music from the movie like they did with Belle's Quest, so points off for you BEAST!
Although the game has actual gameplay, I can't really say it's entertaining. It's annoying to pull off successful attacks as some monsters are either out of your reach or awkward to hit. You've got to basically jump and swipe, or crouch and swipe, and even then you're going to end up missing, and then they're going to hit you. For some reason a rat is going to basically take off two points of health from you. Its a damn rat. You're a beast. Just freaking eat it.
Just like Belle's Quest, you've got 4 boring levels. This is what I'm talking about. Instead of trying to milk money out of parents into buying two games, they could have just combined these two into one 8 level game with Beast and Belle. DAMN YOU DISNEY AND YOUR MONEY MAKING WAYS! (can't really knock em for trying though)
That's about it for my adventures in Beauty and the Beast land. Cant' say I'm sad it's over, but i'm not. This is one tale that's as old as time, and a game that made me lose my mind...Beauty and the Beast......
Where's Chip? Where's that cutey..OH THERE HE IS. Look at dat face.
Final COMBINED Score (out of 5) :
Until Next time - Keep on Gaming!
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