A 2D platformer from Treasure. Shake Shake!

Original N64europe Review

Marina and professor Theo have arrived on the planet Clancer, where a S.O.S. call had been send from. While Marina is outside their spaceship, some bad Clancers get into the ship and kidnap the professor. Marina sees them fly away with the professor, and as brave as she is she goes after them to save him.

In Mischief Makers you've got to control Marina, a chick who knows a lot of moves, for example she can run, shake, slide, roll, throw, do a slide-jump and many more. During the game the people who live in Clancer will learn you how to do all those moves. The whole game takes place in five different worlds, and each world has about eleven levels. A striking point is that every level is 2D (which means Marina's got to walk from left to the right), the backgrounds though are 3D. Mischief Makers is the first game on the N64 to be 2D. To complete each level Marina must get to a yellow-blue star, which sounds very easy (and in the first levels is very easy), but if you get to higher levels you've got to solve difficult puzzles what will take you much time. Except for reaching the end of the level, there's also a second goal, in every level there's a hidden yellow diamond somewhere, if you've found all diamonds something special will happen...

Mischief Makers is just a very weird and hard game, and you won't complete it in just one week. The 3D backgrounds look very good, and the weird look of the habitants of Clancer is also very funny (their faces look a bit like the mask of the movie Scream, i.e. with big eyes and a wide-open mouth). A striking point about the controls is that you don't control Mrina with the 3D stick but with the D-pad, it will take you a while to get used to this. The sounds were the only sad thing about Mischief Makers, they're too reptitive and too twee.

Mischief Makers may look very childish, but it's actually very hard (too hard for children), it's an "almost-must" for those who like platforms.

- By Gerben Stavast