Time to catch some Zees!
First of all, the intro cutscenes is fantastic, and you get another cutscene after each boss fight. They look really good, animate really well and the voice acting is pretty good too. They also set the tone well, as this is a humorous game with a bit of a horror-esque edge. The game looks really nice too, it almost felt like an N64 game, as it's not as sharp and edgy as most Ps1 games tend to be, but rather a bit rounder.
The game is pretty much another mascot platforming game of its era. You can play as a cutesy girl or boy, Ruff and Tumble, both who are wearing their pajamas as they are in a dream world, as you set out to rescue the 40 winks. The game is built after the collectathon blue print, as you must collect 40 cogs on each level, 12 keys on each world and all forty winks. For all intents and purposes, both characters are identical, except that some zones are exclusive to one of them, and while Ruff gets a Jester outfit powerup, Tumble gets a fairy princess. Both costumes work the same, only that they look different.
Controls are simple, there's a jump button and two attack buttons. The square is your basic three hit combo, while circle is a more powerful ranged attack that consumes 'Moons' from your stock. You also get a butt-stomp my pressing circle on the air and a dash attack by pressing circle while moving. This can be a bit cumbersome as it's easy to accidentally dash attack while trying to shoot. The health bar is a bit weird, as it's a Zee counter that can go up to a 100. Getting hit will make you drop half of the Zees of the amount of damage you took, so if you are fast enough you can pick up some zees and, basically, halve the damage you took. There's fall damage, which is something I didn't really like.
I mentioned the Jester and Fairy Princess outfits above, for you see, costumes are this game's main mechanic. On every level you'll eventually come across a red box, jumping on it can either turn you into a Caveman, a Ninja, a Jester/Fairy Princess or a Robot. The Jester/Fairy Princess has a high jump, a more powerful three-hit combo, invulnerability(sans from environmental hazards) and infinite oxygen. The Caveman has a bone-vomiting projectile attack and can destroy certain floors by butt stomping it. The Ninja is super fast, can cling onto ropes and vines and has a high jump. The Robot has a massive double jump and a very useful missile ranged attack. Transformations last 100 seconds, but you can always return to the red box, or find orbs that add seconds onto your counter to keep the transformation going. It's not super involved, and as you can clearly see, it's not like most transformations have unique mechanics, but still.
The game is made up of about five worlds with 3 levels each. And there's a lot you need to collect. First of all, each level has 40 cogs(In about two levels I managed to get more than 40, but you'll never need more than 40) that gate some doors, so you can't open them until you get the necessary amount of cogs. Each level also has 4 Dream Keys that you absolutely need to collect, as it's the only way to fight the boss. And then there are about 2-3 Winks per stage, and these are mandatory as the stage's exit portal only appears once you have found every Wink.
It's not a bad system, however... you absolutely need to collect everything, and that can be a pain. For starters, some of the keys are TOO well hidden, I needed a FAQ to find them all, and I don't think I would've ever found some of them by my own. Oh, and returning to a stage.... means having to collect every cog again. I won't lie, if I missed a key and accidentally got into the Exit Portal... I used the 'All 40 cogs' cheat to just get done with it faster. Adding to this... finding out that you are missing a single cog can also be a harrowing experience, as this means combing down the ENTIRE level again trying to search for the missing cog, and man, it can be harsh. Some levels have over 40 cogs, which I think was an oversight, but that would've been a good idea.
Leaving the issue about the missing cogs aside... I felt the stages were fun. They look pretty, and I love the horror vibes that permeate most stages. Even the Prehistoric world can be kind creepy. The gameplay is satisfying, for the most part, and I liked it so much that I pretty much finished the entire game in a single day. The one big issue, and this is true of most games back then... is that sometimes the camera won't cooperate and turn were you want it to turn. It's not awful, it's not very frequent, but sometimes it will get in your way. There are optional races on every world, which play alright. They are just there to heal up.
A few paragraphs above I mentioned how there are more than 40 cogs in some stages, which I felt was an oversight... well, that's because sometimes it feels as if the game was unfinished. Going back to the fall damage, it's possible to take damage from using the Robot Costume's double jump. That's just ridiculous. Then there are some platforms, like on the Swamp stage, that... you simply can't get on top of depending on where you approach them when you jump. At the beginning of the Swamp stage I figured I couldn't make the jump, so I looked around... and found no way to progress. Eventually, I discovered that if you jump at the platform towards it's right edge... you'll actually make the jump. It's kinda silly. Then there are the ledges. For some reason, sometimes, your character can grab onto a platforms edge. Sometimes. I think there are only four edges in the entire game on which you can grab onto, and on one of them... if you get climb up, you'll automatically fall down. It's... it's so weird.
But then... then there's the cream of the crop, the hidden double jump. Late into the game, there were a few cogs that I simply couldn't reach. In my desperation it seems I mashed the Jump button... and produced a double jump. I tested it, and yes, if you press the jump button twice, VERY quickly, you can get a double jump. That wasn't in the tutorial, I thought. So I went into the instruction booklet not a mention of this amazing double jump. So I looked it up only... and only one other person mentioned it. It's a bug. And with this you can totally break the game, now your un-costumed character can jump as high as the Ninja or the Jester. But even better, now the Caveman can finally jump worth a damn, and the Jester and Ninja get even higher jumps. You can completely break the game like this, but I also felt as if it made it more fun. The fact that it's hard to get it to come out consistently, since the window to double tap X is so small, also adds some risk into it, making it even more rewarding.
I feel... I feel as if 40 Winks should've been a classic of its time. Sure, a lot of it feels as if it could've used more time in the oven, but what is here is a load of fun. It absolutely nailed the tone it was going for, I felt they made good use of their concept, and going through the levels was fun... at least until I realized I was one cog short of the next gate, or that I opened up the exit portal but was missing a key!
8.0
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