Review #792: Open Season

 If only it played as good as it looks.

 I'm sure I'm not the only one that when asked about gorgeous 2-D sprites usually thinks about Capcom, Konami and SNK, thanks to their beautiful Arcade and Console games. But if I've learned something playing through so many licensed garbage on the Gameboy Advance... is that Ubisoft were on point when it came to 2-D sprites, Open Season is yet another beautiful licensed game from them. Since I'm growing tired of CIMA, and my girlfriend's got the Switch, I decided to play something else on a handheld, and thus I came around this little platform game.

 Usually, this is the part where I say that I never watched the movie or show so I don't know if it's faithful to the source material, however, when playing this game I realized something.... I saw this movie. I don't know how or when, since this isn't and wasn't the type of movie I like, but I know I saw it, and thus, I can tell you that it does follow the plot of the movie, and does an acceptable job at conveying its main arc. The game is made up of about 8 stages, an introduction stage, 6 main levels and a final battle against the hunter Shaw. Hilariously, there's no normal difficulty, it's either Easy or Hard.

 Boog, our main hero, a bear, can jump, roll and hit enemies with his teddy bear-sack. As you clear stages you'll gain the ability to stock up on living ammo: Beavers, Ducks, Skunks, Rabbits and Squirrel, each one having their own travel arc as well as an exclusive melee attack with Up + B. There's no need for them, but they sure make some boss battles much, much easier. And each stage ends with a boss, so it's not a bad idea to see how you fare against them with your furry pals. Clearing levels also rewards Boog with either an extra heart or an extension to his shout ability, which refills as you defeat enemies, and scares hunters, letting you enter a hilarious pseudo-bullet time. Each stage also has about 20 candy bars to collect, which can be used to buy some permanent upgrades to your ammo .

 Sadly, while the game is beautiful, it's also very boring. Stages are very forgettable and not very fun to explore. And that's the game's biggest problem: It's boring. All that said, I think that children and fans of the movie might get a kick out of it.
 4.0 out of 10