Review: Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg (Nintendo Gamecube)


Platform: GameCube
Category: Platformer
Developer: SonicTeam
Publisher: SEGA
Release: Oct. 2003
The Down-Lo: Yuji Naka takes his first stab at an original 3D platformer since the days of Sega Saturn.

Sonic Team.

I admit it. Those two words alone are almost enough for me to start slobbering like a lunatic fanatical fanboy. Enough for me to soil my pants in anticipation at the prospect of just getting a glimpse of whatever project they may have in store. Enough for me to give up my “prospective” future first-born son (still praying to the birth control pill gods for it to never happen) simply for 10 seconds of time with Yuji Naka himself just so he can tell me what he was smoking when he came up with the idea for Chu Chu Rocket. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I LOVE Sonic Team. Absolutely adore them… in a totally heterosexual way. *cough* And why not? They’ve provided me with some of my greatest game playing experiences EVER. Sonic Adventure, Samba De Amigo, Phantasy Star Online, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, NiGHTS Into Dreams, the beautiful list goes on and on… Wonderful, amazing games that fill my heart with glee just thinking about them.

So of COURSE we all knew who was going to end up reviewing Sonic Team’s first original 3D platformer since Burning Rangers, right? Billy Hatcher was mine. Anyone else who asked for it was shot on site. Period. With that said, I guess you’re wondering if the “No. 3 reason to own a GameCube In 2003” lives up the hype or not. Well yes and no. Let’s get started so you can see what I mean. We’re going to try the new experimental 10-point reviewing scale for this one, so if you like it let me know. If you don’t… tough. Go over to IGN and pay for their heavily tainted opinion. ;)



LET’S REVIEW

1. STORY:

Well… it’s not exactly the epic tale of struggle in the world of Nightopia between an all-powerful evil Wizeman and the First-Level Nightmaren pupil he grants free will too, but it’ll do. The opening FMV intro shows Billy and his friends defending a helpless bird from an “evil” attacking crow. The rescued bird must have taken to his saviors as suddenly Billy and company are whisked away to an alternate reality ruled by huge human sized chickens where, obviously, the fate of the entire universe lays in the hands of 4 pint-sized kids. There are apparently LOTS of these crows around here and they’re organized under an evil king that wants to leave the land in eternal darkness for whatever indiscernible reasons. That’s pretty jacked up. And they’ve not only kidnapped Billy’s three friends, but also gotten hold of the elder chickens that watch over the land to ensure daylight comes to the world each morning. Wow… that’s quite a lot to process all at once. What’s a boy to do? Suit up in a magical heavenly ordained giant chicken suit! What else?

It’s from here that your story begins. Each stage you go to has an elder that needs to be freed from an egg they’ve been trapped in. Once you free the elder, they’ll crow or cockle or something to bring light back to the darkness the place was trapped in until you showed up. Jobs not done yet though. You have to defeat the bosses to fully save that particular area so we know the place won’t suffer relapse. Once that’s done, then you’re free to move onto the next area, BUT you can continue doing missions within the current stage if you like until you complete all area objectives. Supplementary objectives include racing mini-games, beatings time limits, scavenger hunts, and saving your friends (which makes them playable in special missions of their own). Minor cut-scenes and boxed dialogue move things along so you know what to do next.

As weird and as different as this game is in general, the story is standard inoffensive fluff and that’s a bit disappointing. Quirky, yes. Compelling, no. Let’s just say you won’t be frantically playing to find out what happens next in this one. But platformers, in this gamers mind, aren’t about the stories but rather the gameplay. So adequate more than gets the job done here.

Plot rating: 6/10

2. GRAPHICS:

Not great. Not bad. It looks like a souped up Dreamcast game, and that’s not a negative comment at all. The environments are vibrant as you transverse worlds of ice, fire, pirates and more, all beautifully rendered and colorful. There’s almost NEVER any slowdown. And the character models are pretty. Well wait… MOST of the character models are pretty. All over the place are the tiny chicken inhabitants of this realm and they all look like they were created using an N64 development kit. I actually hate talking to the things because they look so blasted ugly, especially their papier-mâche, blandfully textured faces. Feh. The enemy crows are much more interesting to look at as you progress through the game; at first being not much more than bouncing spheres with teeth attached but later showing more form and creativity in their design taking on traits of more treacherous animals and people to reflect their heightened dangerous state. The FMV movies are also absolutely stunning and the opening sets the mood for the game quite nicely. Overall, it all looks pretty pleasing but… well, I don’t know… It’s like we were expecting more. Graphically the game holds up against others in the genre, but it most certainly never surpasses them. Mario Sunshine and even Sonic Adventure 2 Battle at times outshine this title, and that fact doesn’t exactly impress considering these games came out long ago (one of which by the same development studio). It’s a disappointment, but only because you expect more out of Sonic Team due to their past track record in this area in particular. I probably wouldn’t have even given it a second thought otherwise however, so I can’t penalize it.

Graphics rating (for a GameCube game): 7/10

3. SOUND:

The children singing in the background during the chorus of the main Billy Hatcher theme will either endear themselves to you or make your ears bleed. For me it’s the former… at least NOW it’s the former. When I first turned on my GameCube I was ready to bash it in with a sledgehammer to make the noise stop. Funny enough, the music grew on me as I became more immersed in Billy Hatcher’s world. Just be warned that this game is the poster child for light hearted, sugar coated, so cute you can barely handle it music. And whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends purely on taste. It’s not ALL this “kiddy” though, with music during the levels in particular suiting the environments you’re playing in.

The ingame sounds effects aren’t bad. Billy himself doesn’t make too many noises, just some grunting when he pulls his egg to a stop and happy go lucky noises when he jumps. At times this becomes annoying for novice players, because they’ll be hearing Billy grunting from pulling his egg to a stop quite often as they get used to the controls. Thankfully the better you become the less of an issue this becomes.

Bottom line. Everything’s well done here, but also done better elsewhere. I’m not going to be humming too many of these tunes walking down the street (although those blasted chanting children stick in my head from time to time). Overall it’s good, but again subjective to your particular tastes. If you like hearing the cutest noises in gaming then step right on up, people!

HEY! Where are you going!?

Sound rating: 7/10

4. CONTROL:

By himself Billy’s abilities are limited. He can run, jump and err… crow like a rooster. Whoopie. That’s pretty much it. But once you get a hold of one of the plethora of different eggs lying around the field, your arsenal widens up considerably. To get going you simply run up behind an egg and you’ll automatically start rolling it along. This is the most basic way to defeat the crows terrorizing the land; just running into them with your big ole’ egg. As you progress you’ll learn how to perform more advanced moves such as dashes, power bounce jumps (the equivalent of double jumping to get to higher platforms), egg dunking, and slingshooting your egg at enemies with it conveniently returning back to you. While doing all of this the GameCube analog controller never felt so fluid. And since nearly all of Billy’s main actions require the use of one button (the huge A button), the GameCube controller actually lends itself more to easier play rather than to hindering it. So the controls are spot on.

That is… once you master them.

Until then you’ll be pulling your pubic hairs out in frustration. This is because Billy doesn’t control like most platformers you’re probably used to. When Billy’s walking around the world on his own everything’s all fine and dandy, as he controls as you’d expect a 3D adventurer to. But once he gets that egg, it’s a whole different basket of… err… eggs. Having your character control a rolling ball in 3D isn’t as easy as it sounds. In most games if you wanted to change directions you’d simply press the button towards the way you wanted to go without any thought to where you were currently headed. But now that you’re controlling a rolling object you have to remember momentum. You can’t stop on a dime and go in the opposite direction anymore. If you try, Billy will pull it to a stop and release the egg. No, if you want to turn around completely you must roll your egg in a 180-degree half circle and that’s jarring for most players at the beginning. This also creates camera problems as for the most part the camera is automatic. When you’re spinning around in circles several times over, and especially when you need to do so quickly, the camera can’t always keep up. You can control the camera yourself with the right analog stick and the right shoulder button to center the screen, but the amount of skill needed to control a constantly rotating 3D object and a camera that needs to be adjusted all at the same time can be a bit daunting for some and impossible for others. There’s almost no excuse for forcing the player to do all this simultaneously, but the camera has been a problem in almost EVERY title of this kind to date so it’s no surprise. But it’s annoying as all HECK when you’re fighting the camera, getting used to the controls, and then POP! Some crow you didn’t see from off screen pops your egg and the yolks on you. Bleh. Don’t worry though… You won’t be dying TOO often. But it will get you every once in a while until your gaming mojo kicks into overdrive enough for you to handle it.


The way Billy maneuvers that egg you’d think he was a professional package handler

Eggs aren’t the only things you can control however. As you kill enemies and food pops out of their remains (ewww) you can then run over the fruit lying around with your egg to get it growing. And growing… AND GROWING!! Eventually Billy will be tugging around an egg two to three times the size of his own body without breaking a sweat! The little guys’ no wuss. Why, I heard that in his heyday the kid could have lifted Rosie O’Donnell!

“Oh come now that’s impossible. Her head alone must have weighed 90 pounds.”

Besides showing off Billy’s muscle power, plumping up your egg has not only the advantage of dishing out more damage to enemies, but some eggs contain special items that grant you cool abilities (like wings for double jumping without the egg, or extra lives / energy) that you’ll need sometimes to solve puzzles, adding a strategic element to the gameplay. This strategic planning element becomes even more prominent once you find creature eggs. Each creature you hatch has special abilities and attacks involving varying elements that’ll not only help you defeat crows in hordes with a single push of a button, but also solve puzzles for you down the road.

So yes, the game does have a learning curve to it but that’s the price you pay for trying to be innovative. Only thing knocking the controls down as a whole is a camera that’s a little too lazy to keep up with your merry-go-round directional changes.

Control Rating: 7/10

5. REPLAYABILITY:

Billy Hatcher gives you good reason to keep coming back. In addition to the main story mode you’re given a split-screen multiplayer mode that allows up to 4-players. And sweet mary gangsta, is it fun! Again, getting used to the controls aside (in order to enjoy this thoroughly, you’ll need at least one friend who’s good at the game besides you), I haven’t had this much fun playing a multiplayer title since Mario Kart 64. Whether it be frantically hatching as many eggs as possible before you friends do (and cracking their eggs for fun) or just plain beating the crap out of each other, the multiplayer mode offers seemingly limitless amounts of fun the more friends you add to the mix. Guess good ole Yuji Naka wasn’t kidding when he said Billy Hatcher originally started out as a party multiplayer game. Again I can’t stress enough how much fun you’ll have just playing around with your friends, but once more a word of warning… get used to the controls in story mode FIRST, or you’re a dead man when the competition starts.

The main mode has some legs to stand on too. Secrets within the story mode like collecting 5 coins in every level to obtain the ultimate hatch-able character (Sonic The Hedgehog) and finding the hard to find GameBoy Advance game bonus eggs will have you coming back to nearly every level you’ve played. So if you want to fully experience the title, you’ll be replaying quite often, as there’s much to do especially because this game is HUGE.

And again, you can hatch Sonic The FREAKING Hedgehog!!


See. I told ya.

Worth collecting all the coins just to see what he does for you in each level once you can hatch him! Trust me…

Replayability rating: 9/10

6. BALANCE:

And now 411 proudly presents…

Bebito’s Top 50 Ways To Annoy The Hell Out Of Everyone

50) Fart loudly and obnoxiously, and then blame it on the person standing next to you.

49) Have an uncontrollable lusting for someone else every five minutes.

48) Pretend to be from different ethnic backgrounds every hour, and when people ask you about it, answer like a hillbilly would.

47) Act like a hillbilly. Period.

46) Act like a goth. Period.

45) Gossip about someone to their face.

44) Answer every question with a question.

43) Repeat yourself constantly.

42) Act like a member of the opposite sex. Like Chuck Platt does.

41) Repeat yourself constantly.

40) Act like Mr. Flanders from The Simpsons.

39) Repeat yourself constantly.

38) Change what you repeat every now and then.

37) Use homonyms in your e-male that the spell cheque would knot sea as miss steaks.

36) Change what you repeat every now and then.

35) Talk to someone while looking at somebody else.

34) Employ in your casual banter extensive vocabulary that will befuddle thy contemporaries. Like Fred Badlissi does.

33) Change what you repeat every now and then.

32) Force someone to read this entire list.

31) Plagiarize half the Games staff and still not get fired from the site for it because we’re desperate for reviewers and Chris has a big heart and doesn’t want to rock the boat and… DAMN YOU WATSON! WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIE!? (*cough*) I’m sorry… that’s not like me at all. Please ignore number 31.

30) stringwhateveryousayintoonelongwordsoitshardtomakeoutwhatyou’resaying.

29) Using non-existent words like George Bush would.

28) Change what you repeat again.

27) Speak in rapid Spanish. To everyone. All the time.

26) Pretend not to know about the rule of personal space.

25) When doing number 26, pretend to have a heavy nose cold causing you to breathe heavily through your mouth. Sneeze occasionally.

24) Change what you repeat again.

23) You are better than everybody else. Let them know so. Like Alex Lucard does.

22) Rudely correct everybody’s grammar.

21) Don’t proper grammar use while you are correcting them.

20) Pretend to be drunk. Like Liquidcross does when he writes.

19) Groom yourself while standing backwards (towards everybody) in an elevator.

18) Change what you repeat again.

17) Pretend your name is “Hoochie The Snake Handling Cannibal Clown With A Fanatical Devotion To The Pope”, and don’t answer to anything else.

16) Call everybody you know Bob or Georgia. Bob for girls, Georgia for boys.

15) Fine people for stupid things, like being too popular, or having too many teeth.

14) Change what you repeat again.

13) For those who wish to annoy, riddles is that in which you should speak.

12) Lick your lips constantly, acting as if doing so is pleasurable. Like LL Cool J. What is up with him doing that?!!

11) Pretend to be high. Like Lee Baxley doe… err. Well ok, he’s not pretending.

10) Become severely narcoleptic in the middle of a conversazzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

9) Change what you repeat again.

8) You ARE the lord of the dance. Never forget that.

7) Speak in Gaelic.

6) Blink rapidly and constantly.

5) Scratch yourself constantly. I am not saying where.

4) Start repeating what you say as soon as you say it.

3) Start repeating what you say as soon as you say it.

2) Write a videogame site rumor column called the “Down-Lo” for only three-month stretches at a time, constantly leaving and coming back, stringing your audience along, abandoning them at random. Like… um,… hmmm. I can’t think of anyone on staff that does that.

And the #1 Way To Annoy The Hell Out Of Everybody IS….

1) Lock them in a room and force them to play Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg for 10 hours straight. And at the first hint of a smile forming on their face, quickly snatch the disc out of the GameCube and break it in half.

Yes… the point of this painfully long skit was to make sure you understand HOW ludicrously brutal Billy Hatcher will be for the first 5-10 hours you play it. The game is darn near IMPOSSIBLE the initial hour you lay your hands on it, and it only gets worse from there… MUCH worse. The learning curve is steep enough by itself. As mentioned above, Billy controls flawlessly but getting used to said controls takes some time. But WHILE you’re coming to grips with the at first slightly awkward play mechanics the game throws brutally hard challenges at you that most would have trouble with even if they came out of their momma’s womb playing the thing with their umbilical cord fused to a GameCube with a copy of the game inside. It’s like Sonic Team set out to completely alienate people from the game within the first 5 minutes of play… let alone after hours of game time. And I’m GOOD people. On my worst day I can beat Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Mario & Sunshine, Sly Cooper & The Somethingorother, Opei & Anthony, Sifl & Olly, and any other generic two bit platformer worth their salt while under the influence of hallucinogens, drunk, and half asleep without any problems whatsoever. But this game had me ready to throw my GameCube in my cat’s litter box and then feed the poor guy bean burritos. It’s so blasted unforgivingly annoying guys. I kid you not… it’s more annoying than Alex Lucard’s arrogance. More annoying than repeating yourself every two seconds! More annoying than repeating yourself every two seconds! More annoying than hillbillies! HILLBILLIES PEOPLE!

Couple this with the sudden shocks to the system that are the boss battles and you have (initially) the most unbalanced platformer I’ve played in some time. Why’s that? Because the bosses are easy. REALLY easy. I didn’t die once fighting a boss until the 3rd one strutted along. After burning up in the internal fire of torment that is this game’s Gehenna main stages, along come these barely menacing looking bosses that can be taken down by simply using the power of forethought concerning beating them… The difficulty factor was all over the place for this game.


Billy Hatcher Bosses: Easier than Britney Spears

“Dizaaaamn, Bebito! You must have really hated this thing, huh?”

Not at all. I absolutely love the game.

“Wha?”

Notice I said it’s like this for only the first 5-10 hours. Beyond that, the game miraculously balances itself out. Around the 8-hour mark you’ll be getting really good at controlling young Billy and you’ll be pulling off moves and stunts that you probably thought impossible before. Once this happens the game suddenly goes from piss-inducingly hard to compellingly challenging! Your skills have finally caught up with what the game expects of you and it’s a wondrous thing to behold. Going back and playing the previous levels over again (to get the “Sonic Coins”) was a snap and I wondered how I ever had trouble in the first place. Even the later bosses get their acts together and start giving you a run for your money. And the title starts getting progressively harder AS you improve instead of BEFORE, thus greatly improving your enjoyment and seriously lowering your frustration. It’s a matter of sticking with it.

So while I can’t excuse the pain and torture it puts you through trying to get used to the game’s learning curve while dealing with an already hard difficulty, once you and the game FINALLY get in sync, it becomes one of the best platformers of the year. Pure gaming bliss. You feel like you actually accomplished something after completing a level in this game, because you truly earned it. That’s worth the price of admission right there. Keep in mind however that I like a good challenge. I like finally having a game that my wife can’t blaze through as easily as I can. It shows that it was made for true gamers, rather the occasional pickup and play players.

So balance? Bad at first. Great later on. Does that make sense? Probably not, but we’ll just call it a push and be done with it…

Balance rating: 5/10

7. ORIGINALITY:

Okay. To put it bluntly, there is nothing out there like this. Say all you want about how kiddy the thing looks because of the chickens and the clucking and whatever, but there’s no denying that the concept of pushing around a giant rotating egg and using it as a gameplay device to attack, maneuver, platform, and solve puzzles is something that has never been done before successfully in 3D in this large a fashion. Did it set new standards for the genre? No. Does it standout within said genre? Yes. There’s a reason why the controls don’t feel derivative. It’s because this game is totally different from your standard run, jump, shoot affair. This is the very definition of DIFFERENT. If you’re looking for a game outside of the norm, here it is. Eat it up.

Originality rating: 9/10

8. ADDICTIVENESS:

Bleh. To be honest, this game will take its toll on you. It’s hard and you WILL need breaks to recover. This isn’t the sort of game that you play late hours into the night. This is the sort of game that when you’re fully prepared for it you tackle it with full guns a blazin’. You will be compelled to play it just because it’s a fun challenging game and you’ll feel rewarded for completing it. But unless you can reach your gaming Zen everytime you turn on your GameCube… you’ll probably take this one in jabs.

Addictiveness rating: 5/10

9. APPEAL FACTOR:

Ok here’s the problem. The game is insanely cute and cuddly. Happy, cuddly, lovey time music. Cute little hyperactive spasm chickens running around in a panic. A boy in a giant chicken suit. It may sound hilarious, but the premise will also sound too kiddy to most people. Thus those that this game was intended for, the hardcore 3D platformer, may pass by it because “it looks like a kiddie game”. And that’s a shame. For one, because I HATE it when people do nothing but look at the packaging of a box or look at a screenshot in a magazine and dismiss the game as kiddy (and thus sucky) without giving it a try. And two, because this is a very good game. The kid who runs to buy Billy Hatcher looking for the next Sonic fix will get more than they bargained for, and the older gamer with the actual skills to enjoy the thing will look over it to buy Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness. ARRGGG!!

So the appeal to those who would actually enjoy this type of game is sadly low. But it’s a sign of the times we live in. Scares me to wonder what would have happened to Mario if he JUST came out and didn’t have a long lineage of games to bring in nostalgia. Would we even care about him? Or would we have dismissed Super Mario 64 as a kiddie game… *shudder*

Appeal Factor rating: 4/10

10. MISCELLANEOUS:

It’s all about the Easter eggs ladies and gentlemen. All about the Easter eggs. For those smart enough to own a Game Boy Advance Billy Hatcher gives you the ability to unlock classic games for your handheld on the go, including Puyo Pop, Chu Chu Rocket, and… NiGHTS into Dreams. That’s right… A PORTABLE version of NiGHTS… NiGHTS!!

NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS!

*takes a deep breathe*

NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS! NiGHTS!

NiGHTS…

*clears throat* Just in case you missed it. I said there’s a portable version of NiGHTS in Billy Hatcher. I’m not going to talk about how many hours of my life was stolen by Chu Chu Rocket on its own, let alone with the combined power of Puyo Pop and NiGHTS Into Dreams. Sure you can get the same games in Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II, but you needed to go online to get them (and we all know how GREAT Nintendo’s been doing enticing us to go online) so not everyone had access. Now we ALL have the opportunity to enjoy these handheld blessings, so don’t be a retard and pass them by. I know I sound a bit nuts but dear god people… if you’re a serious Sega fan… I mean really… these are the greatest extras ever put into a game PERIOD.

That is all.

Miscellaneous rating: 9/10



The Ratings:
Plot rating: 6/10
Graphics rating: 7/10
Sound rating: 7/10
Control Rating: 7/10
Replayability rating: 9/10
Balance rating: 5/10
Originality rating: 9/10
Addictiveness rating: 5/10
Appeal Factor rating: 4/10
Miscellaneous rating: 9/10

Average Rating: 6.8/10

– (With Reviewer’s Tilt) Rounded To 7.0 (GOOD)

Short Attention Span Summary
Billy Hatcher is a good game. Billy Hatcher is an above average game. But is it a great game? Is it a classic? No, it’s not. Balance issues, a brutal learning curve, and a lack of appeal to those it was designed for smack this game down a few notches. But if you’re a gamer looking for a serious challenge and you have the patience to master the finer nuisances of your platformers then welcome to gaming paradise! Everyone else? At the very least worthy of a rental to see if floats your boat. You may just fall in love with it… if you’ve got the testicular fortitude that is. Do yourself a favor; look past the “kiddy” exterior and give it a whirl. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IT HAS NIGHTS!


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