From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Reflections: "Superfrog" (Amiga)

Lately I've been delving deep into the Amiga's library and having a lot of fun in the process. I went in with the intention of discovering and playing the platform's best games, and whenever I turned to best-of lists for guidance, I kept seeing the same names over and over again. I was continuously pointed in the direction of games like The Secret of Monkey Island, Lemmings, Zool, Fire & Ice: The Daring Adventure of Cool Coyote, Shadow of the Beast, and Turricans I and II.

And one game in particular was consistently topping all of those lists: Superfrog, which was said to be the Amiga's premier platformer and one of the platform's best games.

Now, I'd seen Superfrog before. I watched The Mexican Runner, one of Twitch's resident game-masters, play through it during his Amiga-focused Retro Gauntlet. My impression was that it was a pretty fun-looking game, and I was interested in playing it. Though, I refrained from doing so for two reasons: (1) With Amiga games, I knew, looks could be deceiving. In the past, I'd sampled plenty of Amiga games that looked really cool on the surface but were, in reality, rough and very unpleasant. And I feared that the same would be true of Superfrog, too. And (2) at the time, I had no desire to jump back into Amiga emulation because I didn't want to deal with its mess of incompatibility issues and all of the other problems that commonly haunt computer emulation. I just didn't need the hassle.

But a few months later, when I suddenly got the urge to explore the Amiga's library, I knew that it was only a matter of time before Superfrog and I crossed paths. And because all of those best-of lists had so many good things to say about the game, I was confident that it was well-made, and I was eager to play it and find out just how good it was.

And in January of 2023, I finally that got that opportunity.

"So how did it go?!" you ask with bated breath.

Well, dear reader, I'd describe my Superfrog experience as one that took me on the most extreme of emotional rollercoaster rides.

At first, after playing Superfrog for only a few minutes, I was prepared to dismiss it and deem it to be yet not another sloppily made Amiga platformer. Its action, I felt, was rough and out of control, and it was too hard to stay alive. But after I completed a few of its stages and got a better grasp of its controls and mechanics, I started to actually enjoy myself; and before I knew it, I was completely engrossed in the action. Superfrog, I was now finding, was a good game.

Though, my first session didn't go too well. I was only able to make it as far as the second world.

In the days that followed, I made two more attempts, but each of them, too, ended in failure. At that point, I decided that the Supefrog was too difficult to beat on one credit (unless I wanted to grind for a long period of time) and that I would be better served to use level codes. And that's how I went about beating Superfrog: I gradually progressed through it using level codes. And when its ending scene came to a close, I thought I was done. "Well, I've beaten that game!" I thought. "Now it's time to move on to the next one!"

But the whole time, I was feeling really unsatisfied with how things went. I was feeling that way because I knew that I hadn't really beaten Superfrog, no. Rather, I'd password-abused my way through it, and to me, using passwords to get around the lack of a continue system just wasn't a legitimate way to beat a game. So I knew what I had to do: return to Superfrog and beat it on one credit. That, I knew, was the only way I was going to clear my mind.

So in the following three days, I made successive attempts to beat Superfrog.

In the first attempt, I made it deep into World 4, the Huge Pyramid, before failing. In the second attempt, I choked right at the end, in World 6-4's final passage (I fell into the spikes three or four times in a row and then ran out of time), and became so dispirited by my failure that I considered never playing Superfrog again and saving myself a lot of mental anguish. And in my third attempt, I finally did it. I played through and beat Superfrog--one of the toughest platformers I'd ever played. And I was glad that I did it that way. Beating it legitimately was really satisfying. It was one of the most rewarding-feeling victories I'd ever earned. I felt as though I'd accomplished something really great.

That's what Superfrog did for me.

And my sense is that it can do the same for you! So go on--continue reading and take the time to find out what Superfrog is and why it's worth playing!

 So if I had to describe Superfrog in as few words as possible, I'd call it "an unapologetically early-90s mascot-based platformer," which is to say that it, like others of its ilk, shows no shame in admitting that it takes heavy inspiration from the era's most iconic side-scrolling platformers. What it attempts to do, predictably, is take all of their hallmark elements and amalgamate them together in an inventive way and in the process create something that feels simultaneously familiar and new.

Its brand of storytelling, not surprisingly, is exactly the type you'd expect to find in an early-90s platformer. It's goofy and surreal in nature. It likes to break the fourth wall and exhibit a high degree of self-awareness. In its opening scene, for instance, Superfrog, after realizing that the cape-blowing-in-the-wind part of his heroic-pose shot isn't occurring as planned, signals to a distracted offscreen stagehand and reminds him to turn on the fan. Also, at one point in the game, you can't enter into a certain stage portion because it's "unfinished"; it's still in sketch form and thus hasn't been colored or coded.

In that respect, Superfrog is a lot like the Earthworm Jim games: It's wacky and silly, and it regards its story as a mere contrivance. It introduces time travel and takes you to interdimensional worlds, yet it can't even begin to explain how any of these ideas actually work. It doesn't even attempt to try. "Don't think about it, man," it says while shrugging its shoulders, "just go with it."

So its story, if you're prepared to take it seriously, is set in a place called Magic Land, which is said to be the former home of a magic prince and his lovely bride to be. It was a peaceful place until a wicked witch came along and turned its prince into a little green frog and consequently spread turmoil throughout the land.

After becoming a frog, the prince was forced to leave his kingdom and live near the riverside--the only place in which creatures like him were welcome. Yet for him, it wasn't all doom and gloom: At one point, as he was resting near the river bank, a strange bottle floated past him. He was so intrigued by its sudden appearance that he pulled it out from the water and examined it. He found that it contained a powerful elixir and promptly drank from it. And a few moments later, he transformed, spectacularly, into a legend to be: the mighty Superfrog!

Now imbued with boundless courage and a high level of determination, he heads over to the Magic Forest with the intention of meeting three goals: rescuing his beloved, destroying the frog curse, and giving that nasty old witch the punishment she deserves!

You've seen this story before, of course. It's straight out of every popular 90s-era cartoon and video game: A human or an animal comes across an unidentified substances that transforms it into a new type of rad superhero. Superfrog, as is its disposition, is unashamed to borrow such a popular concept. It has no problem with audiences perceiving its story to be cliched. It doesn't want to revolutionize the craft of storytelling, no; rather, the only thing it desires to do is put a new twist on a standard formula and have a lot of fun doing so.

And as a requisite, Superfrog has a certain amount of edginess to it, too, because, well, that's what every post-Sonic the Hedgehog platformer needed to contain if it were to have any chance of appealing to the all-important 12-to-16-year-old demographic (which was comprised mostly of "cool" and "mature" kids who didn't need no stupid baby games!).

So to put it simply: Superfrog is purely a product of its era. It's one of the most early-90sest games in existence.

 So let's talk about the basics.

Superfrog has seven worlds and 25 stages in total, and all but one of its world is comprised of 4 stages. The goal in each stage is to collect a required amount of coins and unlock the stage's exit door, which has a toll fee. The exit won't unlock until you possess the required amount of coins (usually stages contain more coins than you actually need).

One of the most troubling aspects is the time-limit restraint. Each stage has a 4-minute time-limit, and if time runs out, you instantly Game Over. It doesn't matter if you have any lives remaining. If time runs out, it's all over. So you can't dawdle, and you have to make it a point to seek out and obtain the game's time-extension item.

You start the game with only three lives, but you can earn more lives by either obtaining 1ups items or earning a certain number of points (you get one extra life for every 200,000 points). You have four units of health, and you can take up to five hits; and you can fully replenish your health by picking up a health item.

When you take damage from an enemy or a projectile, you get about three seconds of invincibility time. During this period, you can pass through anything but deadly hazards like spikes and flames, which you kill you instantly no matter what state you're in.

In Superfrog, you earn points for basically every action: killing enemies, collecting coins, and picking up regular and special items. After you complete a stage, you get a Super Award Bonus whose total is determined by three factors: the amount of time you had left, the amount of fruit you gathered, and the number of coins you collected. The game game quantifies your performance and offers you a certain amount of points, which you can accept or reject in favor of an alternate offer (more on this in a moment).

There are no continues, and there's no save function (though, there is a way to earn level codes that allow you to restart from where you left off).

The game has two modes: Easy and Normal. The former provides you a slower type of control and more time per level ("Normal" is the default setting). You can change the mode setting in the game's options menu. And while you're there, you can also adjust your number of lives (up to 5 or 7), save or load your high score to a data disk (the manual warns you not to save it to the game disk, itself), or input a level code.

A large part of Superfrog's action entails collecting items for different purposes. The primary items are coins, which you collect in pursuit of opening up stage exits and completing stages (each stage, like I said, requires you to collect a certain number of them). Coins can be seen floating about the stages' every explorable space; sometimes they're out in the open, and other times they're hidden in isolated corners or rooms or in secret areas.

All of the other items are optional, but they're worth obtaining because of how helpful they can be.

First there are the regular items: fruit, jewels and crowns, each of which come in multiple forms. Each fruit type awards 50 points, but the the other types award varying amounts: The rarer jewels award anywhere from 2,500 to 15,000 points; and the two ultra-rare crown types award 20,000 and 50,000 points, respectively. Regular items can be found anywhere, and usually they appear in Commander Keen-style groupings and clusters.

Then there are the special items, which can also be found anywhere (though, they appear much less frequently than regular items). They, too, come in different types.

The most useful of special items are the enhancement types. They include the following:

• The Destructo-Spud--a little green blob companion that you can use as a boomerang-type projectile. When you press the fire button, Superfrog will throw the blob diagonally upward at about half-a-screen's length. It can kill most flying-type enemies. You can also throw the blob directly upward and straight ahead by adding the appropriate directional influence immediately after you press the fire button. Note, though, that you can't toss the blob while you're aerial.
• Frog Wings, which allow you to fly through the air for a limited amount of time and slowly float downward. You can do either by repeatedly tapping the button while you're aerial. Basically the Frog Wings give you the ability to travel really long distances and cautiously float your way down unfamiliar rooms and passages in Racoon- and Tanooki-suit style. Also, most usefully, the Frog Wings allow you to carefully orient yourself while you're in the air and exercise more precision. Though, unlike Mario, Superfrog can only float for a limited amount of time (about three seconds).
• The green Speed Up Pill, which increases Superfrog's speed.
• The red Slow Down Pill, which, conversely, decreases Superfrog's speed.

Not that you'll lose all of your power-ups if you die.

Then there are the general items:

• The Locuzade energy drinks, which fully replenish your health and, more importantly, add two extra minutes to the timer. Even if you don't need the extra time, you'll want to have it because the more time you have on the clock, the more bonus points you'll receive after completing a stage.
• The Invisibility Ball, which provides you about ten seconds of invincibility. During this time, you can safely pass through enemies and damaging objects. Be warned, though, that the invincibility won't protect you from hazards like spikes and flames; you'll still die instantly if you make contact with any of them.
• The Restart Coin, which acts as a checkpoint. You can choose which Restart Coins you want to obtain and create preferred checkpoints.
• The 1up item, which awards you an extra life. Normally 1ups are rare, but the game tends to be generous with them in its roughest segments (and thus signify to you that the level designers sensed that they might have went a bit overboard in said segments). The UI can only display five life symbols and doesn't always reflect your true number of lives. Once you have more than five lives, it stops communicating the true number (it doesn't even list the number on its stage-end screens); at that point, you have to keep count in your head.

Superfrog also has another fun addition: a slot machine minigame, which can be hugely beneficial to you.

So after you complete a stage, you're given two options: You can choose to either (a) collect the aforementioned Super Award Bonus points-booster and simply move on to the next stage or (b) gamble with a converted number of special credits. If you choose to gamble, you'll be taken to the slot-machine minigame.

Superfrog's, you'll quickly learn, is a lot more complex than the standard video-game slot-machine minigame. It has a lot of depth to it, and it offers the player a number of special options. The purpose of gambling, mainly, is to earn points and increase your score. You'll want to do it because the slot machine's payouts go a long way toward helping you to earn your next 1up, of which you'll likely be in desperate need.

To earn points, you have to line up three symbols in a a pattern that matches any of those displayed on the machine's pay table. You win by matching three symbols (three bells or three grape bunches) or by lining up a particular combination (like two bells and a Lucozade can). But it's not always as simple as that. Sometimes the machine will offer you a special option. Anytime you line up a winning symbol-pattern, there's a chance that the machine will offer you the option to gamble the awarded points-total in a bonus subgame that plays out in the machine's rightmost panel.

In any such subgame, you can attempt to continuously increase the points-total in incremental amounts (10,000 points, then 20,000 points, and so on) by pressing the panel's "Gamble" button. As long as you keep winning, you can continue to advance your way up the panel and earn greater rewards. The top rewards include an extra life, a 2X-points multiplier, and a level code (there's also a "Repeat" reward that allows you to cycle back to the beginning and continue gambling). If you're happy with what you've won and want to quit (or if you're too afraid to continue), you can press the left panel's "Collect" button and take your payout. But if you light up "Lose," the bonus game instantly ends and, depending upon the subgame you were playing, you either lose the original points-total or receive a greatly reduced number of points.

Be aware that the odds of winning grow increasingly smaller as you move up the panel, and at least half the time, you won't even win the very first draw. In all cases, you're always taking a big risk when you press the Gamble button.

So there are two subgames: First there's the normal subgame that triggers whenever you line up any of the aforementioned symbol-patterns. In this one, you start at the number that corresponds to the symbol-pattern in question (10, 20, 40 or 50), and you press the rightmost panel's Gamble button with the hope of lighting up the next highest number in the sequence. Your aim, if you're so bold, is to advance your way to the panel's top.

The other subgame is the "Hi-Lo Feature," which you trigger by lining up a specific symbol-pattern: a bell, a Lucozade can, and a grape bunch. In Hi-Lo, a random number appears in the box below the credit counter, and you have to guess if the next randomly chosen number will be higher or lower (it's similar to the game show Card Sharks). You do this by pressing the slot machine's left and right buttons, which are alternatively marked "Hi" and "Lo." Hi-Lo's bonus system works the same way as the normal one's: winning choices light up the rightmost panel's numbers in succession (from 10 to 20 to 30, etc.); and if you guess incorrectly, the subgame ends, and you lose the awarded points-total.

Though, the best thing that you can earn on the slot machine is a level code. You can do this by lining up three Locuzade cans or by making it all of the way to the top of the bonus panel and lighting up the "Level Code" display. If you win a level code (which you'll want to do if you're struggling to advance through Superfrog and don't want to replay it from the start each time you Game Over) the subgame ends instantly, but resultantly you're awarded 100,000 big points plus 1,000 extra points for each remaining spin.

Sometimes (and I'm not sure what triggers this) the machine will allow you to "Hold" certain symbols and keep it held in place during the subsequent spin (the machine will alert you to a Hold opportunity by having its Hold buttons flash). This is more likely to happen when two matching symbols appear.

I have to say: I'm honestly impressed by this aspect of the game. It's finely executed, and it's both interesting and fun. I didn't think that I would ever care about a slot-machine minigame, but then Superfrog's came along and made me a fan. I actually look forward to playing it! And one of the cool things is that you can control the machine's action with either your controller or your mouse! That's some next-level stuff!

I highly recommend that you play the minigame at every opportunity because the big points that it awards will surely help you to earn 1ups, which you're definitely going to need if you want to have any hope of beating this game.

 If you want to have success in Superfrog, you need to gain a strong grasp on its controls.

So Superfrog uses the standard Amiga-platformer control scheme. You move by pressing left and right on the d-pad, you jump by pushing up on the d-pad, you crouch by pressing down on the d-pad, and you perform actions by pressing the fire button. That's it. No other input commands are ever introduced. (I have to say, though, that Superfrog's limiting jump input to the up-directional is a bit surprising because the game is a late-era release, and thus its developers could have taken advantage of the opportunity to build its game around a two-button controller and map jumping to the second button. Or, at the least, they could have given two-button-controller-owners the option to map jumping to the second button.)

But that's not to say that there isn't any complexity to the game's controls, no. There's plenty of it, and it's mostly centered around Superfrog's basic movements. It starts with the way in which he advances forward: He moves with a running motion and is thus always going fast. There's no slower movement speed, so if you want to advance forward in a more cautious or more leisurely way, you essentially have to take small steps and do so by repeatedly tapping forward on the d-pad.

Though, because his starting movement has such strong acceleration to it, he can easily get out of control even when you're attempting to slowly inch him forward. Even the quickest of taps can cause him to charge forward two or three tiles, and because he's also a slippery little fellow, he'll usually slide one tile forward in following. And these movement properties create the potential for unintentionally charging or sliding into gaps or deadly hazards. So you always have to be prepared to pull back by quickly pressing the opposite direction on the d-pad.

Also, you have to account for slopes' influence. You move slower when you're running uphill and faster when you're running downhill, and when you're doing the latter, it's naturally easier to get even more out of control and travel much farther than you intended to. You have to be extremely cautious when running downhill--especially when you're currently being powered by a Speed Up Pill. If you charge ahead all willy nilly, you can wind up rocketing yourself across several screens and ending up who knows where.

You always have to keep in mind that Superfrog's gameplay is speed-based and sometimes too speedy for its own good, and in response, you have to necessarily learn how to buck its movement system and find ways to keep the little green fellow under control.

Then there's the movement aspect that has the largest amount of complexity to it: jumping. It's the game's dominant mode of movement, so you're going to have gain a strong grasp on how its mechanics work. The first thing you should know is that Superfrog is a very agile hero. His jumps catch some serious air. He's like the amphibian version of Mighty Bomb Jack.

Both his horizontal and vertical jumps are influence-based; the longer you hold the direction, the farther he travels. His vertical jump, honestly, isn't his greatest asset. Its basic variation gets him a mere four tiles of height, and its fully extended variant only gets him one additional tile. That's better than what most video-game heroes can do, but it's not adequate enough in a game whose higher-up platforms are typically 8-10 tiles away.

Superfrog's great strength, rather, is his horizontal jump. Its basic variation carries him only a couple of tiles over, but its extended variations can carry him extreme distances--up to an entire screen (which is a long way considering that Superfrog's horizontal resolution is 334 pixels). His horizontal jumps' lengths are the same whether he's standing or running; he doesn't get a momentum increase when he's doing the latter (if there is an increase, it's completely negligible).

Horizontal jumps execute cleanly and quickly, and they can be fully modulated. And they also have some notable (and sometimes troublesome) qualities to them: They're slow and floaty. They stop dead the moment you cease holding a direction, and consequently Superfrog drops straight down to the ground. And they gain or lose momentum if they're executed while Superfrog is standing on one of those frictionless slopes (the types whose surfaces are formed from ice or water) that automatically propels him forward. If you execute a jump while running down such a slope, you'll travel much farther than usual; but if you execute a jump while running up such a slope, you'll lose a fair amount of distance.

The downward-slope type can be particularly troublesome because you explode forward, in uncontrollable fashion, when you attempt to jump while standing on any part of it. And because this slope type tends to be placed in proximity to deadly hazards, there's always a strong chance that your jumping from one of them will cause you to be involuntarily tossed into spikes or a flame pit. This is the only aspect of the jumping physics that feels sloppy; it's one that can cost you dearly if you don't know how to reliably counteract it.

On the whole, though, Superfrog's jumping controls are smooth and precise, and its aerial movement is easy to control and influence. And that means a lot coming from someone like me--someone who typically dislikes control schemes that force you to press up on a d-pad or joystick to jump.

As for the other inputs: If you press the action button while Superfrog is on the ground, he'll throw his blob companion (if he's in possession of a Destructo-Spud item). The blob travels diagonally, but, like I said, you can also get it to move directly upward or straight ahead if you exert the appropriate directional influence. Side-throws are easy to execute, but up-throws can be a little tricky. If you try to throw the blob upward by pressing up and the action button simultaneously, the jump will likely cancel out the throw-attempt, and you'll wind up jumping up into the enemy or enemies you were trying to strike; what you should do, rather, is hold down the action button first and then press up (this process entails throwing the blob diagonally or forward initially and losing some time, but still it's a superior option because it eliminates the possibility of jumping up into the enemy or enemies).

Otherwise, you can use the action button to float while you're in the air. Each tap will cause Superfrog to flap his wings.

 Superfrog is an early-90's platformer, so not surprisingly, its level design takes heavy influence from Sonic the Hedgehog. It, like so many others from its era, is open about its desire to achieve a look and aesthetic that reminds you of Sega's legendary platformer. It proudly wears its inspiration on its sleeve.

Superfrog's stages, like Sonic the Hedgehog's, are, on average, large and explorable, and they scroll in every which direction. And, of course, they're comprised largely of sharply sloped surfaces, bouncy springs, swinging spike-balls, spike pits, crushing blocks, and other elements that are ripped directly from Sonic's 16-bit games. Some worlds' starting stages are shorter and more linear than the rest, but even stages of their type have a Sonic the Hedgehog-like design quality to them.

But don't take any of this to mean that Superfrog plays like Sonic the Hedgehog. It really doesn't. Its visuals bear a strong resemblance to the latter's, yeah, but that's where the similarity ends. In truth, Superfrog's action is very different from Sonic's; it's much more precision-based. Its stages' structure and curvature invite you to speed along, but usually it's not the best idea to do so. You have to move more cautiously than you would in Sonic for all of the aforementioned reasons and because the health system is more restrictive and making contact with spikes results in instant death.

Having a larger-than-normal field of view doesn't help you much when you're running; you'll still struggle to react in time and stop yourself from charging into spikes or other deadly hazards like flame pits and freezing water pools. You have to be measured in your movements. You have to take the time to observe your surroundings and plan your next move. And you have to be precise because a lot of Superfrog's action entails jumping onto narrow platforms that are placed directly above deadly hazards. Ill-considered or reckless actions will almost always result in death.

Also, Superfrog's stages are different from Sonic's in that they have a clear condition: You can't exit a stage until you've collected a required amounts of coins. Its stages are labyrinthine in nature (generally), and you have to explore many parts of them to find the coins that you need. It's easy to get lost and become nervous (because the timer's always running), but if you continue moving, you're bound to come across a sign or an arrow that'll point you in the right direction. Superfrog is kind in that way.

Stages have a lot of hidden passages, and you can reveal and access them by pressing up against their concealed entrances. Walls are solidly coded, so if you find that any part of Superfrog's body is clipping into a wall, it's a sure sign that said wall is one of those that conceals a hidden passage. Most of Superfrog's hidden passages lead to additional secret passages that consequently form series of interconnected passages; and all such passages tended to be packed with coins and other collectibles. It's always fun to find these passages and then proceed to speed through them and pick up all of the goodies!

Finding hidden passages isn't always optional. In the stages that contain the exact amount of coins that you need, it becomes necessary to find hidden passages because they contain mandatory-to-collect coins. If you don't find these passages, you'll lose.

Superfrog has underwater segments (though I hesitate to even call them that), but they're very infrequent, and there's never anything to them. In these segments, you simply spend three or four seconds walking through water. Naturally the physics change when you're underwater; you move slower and you can't jump as high. Note that the pools of water that appear in World 5, the Ice Caverns, are of the freezing variety and that you'll die if you make contact with any part of them.

Stages also contain hidden blocks that contain five coins apiece. You can release coins from these blocks by jump up into them Super Mario Bros.-style. Also, you can reveal their locations and strike them with the Destructo-Spud. Usually these blocks are placed in obvious locations: around or beneath conspicuous-looking pictures or symbols. Sometimes they're cruelly positioned right in front of deadly hazards, and because you can't see them, you'll be apt to bonk into them and consequently fall into the deadly hazard you were attempting to jump over.

And that's about all there is to it. Superfrog's action is pretty simple. It never gets more complex than "hitting a switch to remove a nearby obstruction.

So there are 7 worlds, and each one has its own visual theme. And some worlds introduce unique gameplay elements: World 3, Funland, has underwater segments and Sonic-like transportation pipes. World 4, the Huge Pyramid, has trick floors (which, in annoying fashion, dump you back down into previously explored areas) and retracting platforms. World 5, the Ice Caverns, is comprised wholly of icy, slippery surfaces and frictionless slopes. And World 6, the outer-space-based Project F, contains only a single stage, but it's a completely unique one: It's a shoot-'em-up-style stage (its action isn't as difficult as a standard shoot-'em up's, but still it's fairly tough; it can cost you a large number of lives if you don't remain sharp)!

On the whole, though, the change in scenery doesn't have any real effect on the gameplay. It's merely cosmetic. The game's turrets, springs, crushers and other elements simply take different forms.

Most of Superfrog's enemies fit into one of two classes: ground-crawling patroller types (snails, slimy slinkies, turtles, mummies and such), some of which throw or spew projectiles in unique ways; or stationary flying enemies (bees, bats and the like). Some can be stomped (for the ground-crawling variety, you have to jump on them twice to kill them--once to stun them and then again to squish them) while others will damage you if you make any type of contact with them. In some cases, you'll know when an enemy is dangerous to the touch; you'll see a porcupine and think, "I'll probably take damage if I jump on that." But in all other cases, you won't know if an enemy can damage you until you take a chance and engage with it.

Flying-type enemies, ordinarily, are susceptible to the Destructo-Spud and will die if it strikes them, but ground-type enemies are impervious to it. It either bounces off of them or passes through them.

What's great about Superfrog is that it has a large enemy cast and that each of its worlds has its own assortment of critters. Many of its enemies are mere reskins, but there also a lot of enemies that don't fit neatly into the two existing categories. There are those like the monoplane-flying, torpedo-dropping penguin; the hopping fuzzball; the patrolling ghost; the diving fish; the laser-firing eye; the ground-to-air ladybug; the dash-happy blue hedgehog (an obvious nod to Superfrog's inspiration); and all of the enemy types you face in the shoot-'em-up stage. Their sheer variety, more so than even the different visual themes, does a lot to help each world establish its own unique personality.

Superfrog has only one boss fight: the endgame battle with the nasty witch. It's not much of a boss fight, really. You can beat her by simply standing there and spamming your Destructo-Spud (which you receive automatically when you reach this point). As you fight the witch, it becomes obvious that this game's platforming engine wasn't built with boss battles in mind; it's clearly not versatile enough to produce quality combat-focused action scenes. So it's just as well that there's only one boss fight. (I say this with the realization that the witch fight might have worked had the designers given it the shoot-'em-up treatment).

In truth, this game doesn't really need boss fights. It's fine without them. Its normal action is satisfying enough.

 Mechanically, Superfrog isn't as polished as Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario World, or any of the other top platformers. Its collision physics, in particular, are suspect: Platform edges lack solidity, and Superfrog tends to fall right through them. Slopes' bounding boxes stretch out farther than they should, and thus there are instances in which you can stand on air and even propel yourself off of it. Springs have weirdly drawn hitboxes, and resultantly you'll sometimes clip into them rather than bounce off of them. And because Superfrog's bounding box also stretches out farther than it should, you're able to jump again before you hit the ground (you can be up to three or four pixels away from the ground and still execute a jump).

The last three issues are no big deal (they just look bad), but the first one can be a big problem. Superfrog has plenty of segments in which you have to jump from one narrow platform to the next, and in any such segment, falling through a platform's edge will likely lead to death.

Also, Superfrog has loading times of varying length. The longest of them is the load-up time: It takes amount a minute to get to the title screen after you load the game file (which is why I recommend making a save-state at the title screen). Stage-transition loading times last about 8-10 seconds, and world-transition loading times can be as long as 30 seconds. The transition times aren't incredibly long, no, but still they can hurt the game's flow (if you're the hyperactive type).

The good news is that Superfrog runs at a consistent 50FPS, and unlike its console peers, it doesn't have any slowdown issues.

Superfrog's other problem is that all too often it relies on cheap design tricks. It has numerous blind drops (sometimes the game indicates to you that there's danger down below, but even then, the warnings tend to come too late--when you're a couple of tiles away from a deadly hazard). In many instances, enemies are programmed to pop in from offscreen and collide with you while you're in mid-jump and consequently knock you down into deadly hazards. There are many slopes and springs that are specifically designed to send you rocketing into spikes. And invisible blocks, like I said, are sometimes cruelly positioned.

But the biggest problem is the abundance of spikes. In this game, spikes are everywhere, and contact with any one of them results in instant death. Even invincibility frames and the Invisibility Ball item can't save you from them. You touch one, you die.

Way too often, slopes and springs send you flying into spikes, and it sucks when they do. It's unfair and often infuriating. It's just plain objectionable design.

Spikes will likely cause the majority of your deaths and Game Overs.

Superfrog, like most computer platformers, can be pretty rough. When you're playing it, you have to remain hyper-focused. You have to keep yourself under control and operate with precision--particularly later in the game, when the level design becomes way more unforgiving.

The game's action is harrowing at all times. It's stressful and paranoia-inducing. You'll be on edge every time you come to ramp or prepare to make a jump into the unknown. You'll be fearful of the consequences of a miscalculation. You'll probably even begin to shake with fear. (I'd say that Superfrog is the most stressful game I've ever played.)

Also, you have to pay attention to the timer. You can't dawdle for too long. Also, finding and obtaining Lucozade bottles and increasing the time-limit is paramount. You don't want time to run out--especially late in the game. If you do, everything you accomplished up to that point will be rendered meaningless. None of it will have mattered. And because Superfrog is a lengthy game (it'll take you about two and half hours to beat it), you'll have thrown away a lot of time, too. And if you're the type who disfavors using level codes, you'll have to do it all in one go.

 Now, I know what you must be thinking at this point: "This game sounds absolutely torturous. Why the hell would I ever want to subject myself to it?"

Well, because what I've said above only tells part of the story. Superfrog has some troubling design aspects, sure, but its positive design qualities outnumber them by a large margin. It does a lot of things right: Its jumping controls work really well. Its stages are large in scale and finely designed and structured. And its action is enjoyable; it's a lot of fun to hop and soar your way across the game's vast environments, explore stages' every traversable space, and find and collect items and treasures.

Superfrog's action is harrowing but also thrilling. It's stress-inducing but also fun and addicting. Superfrog keeps you engaged in a way that other platformers can't. It dares you to survive its difficult trials and aim for ultimate victory, and you'll be eager to answer that challenge because the action is so fun and engrossing and you'll be desiring to find new ways to enjoy it. Superfrog's gripping action encourages you to persist. It inspires you to want to see what comes next and determinedly confront it--and it does this even during those moments when it has you feeling frustrated or dispirited.

And if you keep at it and manage to achieve ultimate victory, you'll feel really accomplished. You'll feel as though you're on top of the gaming world. And you'll be satisfied in the knowledge that you've beaten one of the toughest platformers in existence.

And those are the qualities that make Superfrog worth playing.

 Now, if I'm going to talk about Superfrog's visuals, I have to first add some context and provide some information on its host platform: the Amiga, with which many of you are probably unfamiliar.

What you should know is that the Amiga's specifications are comparable to our favorite 16-bit machines'. Low-end Amiga models tend to have 16-bit processors, 256KB of RAM (which is double what the SNES has), 4,096-color palettes, and screen resolutions ranging from 320x200 to 704x484 (with higher resolutions having less color depth). And later Amiga models' specifications are more advanced and sometimes far more advanced than the aforementioned.

In general, the Amiga is technologically superior to the TurboGrafx-16, the Genesis and SNES in some ways but not in others.

The point is that the Amiga's games look very much like those you find on 16-bit consoles, and that's the standard by which I judge them.

And my assessment is that Superfrog compares very well to the games that we play on our 16-bit consoles. It's a delightful-looking game. It has pleasantly earthy, neutral-bright color-schemes. Its environments and textures are vibrant, sharp- and clean-looking, and well-detailed. And its character are nicely drawn and animated and completely adorable. It's a visually charming game, and merely observing it will put you in good spirits.

Superfrog, I'd say, is sharper- and cleaner-looking that many of its 16-bit peers and most other games in the genre. It has a lot of visual polish to it. And it performs solidly; it doesn't have any slowdown or sprite-flicker issues.

Though, I can't say that Superfrog looks quite as good as the 16-bit-console's best platformers. Even with all of that advanced technology powering it, it isn't as rich-looking or as visually striking as games like New Adventure Island, Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country. Its imagery doesn't pop like theirs; its comparatively muted and sterile.

And its visuals are nowhere near as lush or as vibrant as its inspiration's--as Sonic the Hedgehog's. They're not as colorful, as vivid, or as eye-catching. Also, the game's backgrounds and textures completely lack for animation, and, most disappointingly, there's no parallax scrolling! Rather, Superfrog has only static single-layer backgrounds, and said backgrounds--while they're sharp, clean and well-rendered--just aren't as interesting as Sonic's; they're comparatively dull, generic and unimaginative.

But still, Superfrog is a fine-looking game. It is, like I said, pleasant to look at, and its imagery evokes feelings of delight. Everything in its world is cheerful--its characters, its trees, its celestial bodies, and even its walls! Many of them bear happy-looking faces, and when you see how joyful they are and how excited they are to be there, you'll no doubt crack a smile and, much like them, become filled with cheer!

Oh, and I have to mention one of my favorite little touches: the way in which the face-bearing trees observe your movement. As you maneuver about the surrounding area, their large eyes track you in a friendly-looking manner. And consequently, you get the sense that the trees are encouraging you--that they're saying to you, "Hey, little fella! You're doin' great out there! "Go get 'em!"

I wish the game had more of those types of cute little touches. They would have gone a long way toward helping the game to exhibit more of a unique personality.

 And not surprisingly, that cheerful spirit extends to Superfrog's soundtrack. The game's music is, from start to finish, utterly merry and joyful. It remains irrepressibly cheery and optimistic even when it's accompanying mysterious- or ominous-sounding environments. And while it adapts to said environments--while it tempers itself and takes on some disquieting qualities--it never loses its cheerful energy. That energy is always there, even in underlying form, to say to you, "It's going to be fine. You're going to get through this."

I mean, it's kind of a lie. You're probably going to struggle and die, anyway, but at least the sentiment is nice!

Superfrog's music is fun to listen to, also, because of how unique and quirky it is. Each of its tunes is composed using a combination of strange-but-interesting-sounding instruments and silly sound samples. The Magic Woods theme, for instances, is composed using kooky-sounding horns, harpsichords and kazoos and also doo-wop-style "bum-bum"s and an assortment of croaking sounds. All of the game's stage themes are composed this way; all of them use combinations of kooky-sounding instruments and sound samples that match the given environments. And they're worth listening to because they're fun and cheerful and because they help to keep your spirits up when things get tough (which is, well, always).

I don't have much to say about the game's sound effects. They're mostly clean- and crisp-sounding. The ringing sounds that emit when you collect items have a rewarding energy to them; they give you a dopamine hit and make you eager to collect more items. The voice-sample-type sounds--Superfrog's "Wahoo!"s, laughs, slurps and other utterances--are a bit scratchy-sounding, but still they're of good quality.

Overall, Superfrog is very solid in this area. Its sound effects are well-produced.

 So when you're talking about Superfrog, it's impossible to do so without constantly acknowledging its high level of difficulty. It's a really tough game. I'd say that it's one of the most challenging side-scrolling platformers in existence. I put it up there with games like Super Mario Bros. 2 (the Japanese version) and Ghosts 'n Goblins. And it arguably eclipses them because of the fact that it's much longer than them and has no continues (and you can't count on it giving you level codes).

And Superfrog gets rough in a hurry. Its starts you with two moderately difficult stages and supplies you a relatively brief opportunity to acclimate yourself to its controls and systems, and then swiftly it removes the kid gloves and starts applying some heavy pressure. Then it never eases up.

In Superfrog, staying alive is difficult. You have to remain alert and focused at all times. If your attention start to wane, you'll surely screw up and perish. And you also have to make it a point to earn lives; you have to& collect as many items as you can and earn credits for the slot-machine mini-game and then convert those credits into big points and 1ups. If you don't grow your life-stock, your adventure will likely be cut short.

Superfrog has a lot of rough spots--scary segments in which you can potentially dump many lives. Worlds 4 and 5, in particular, are rife with them. They're filled with slopes and unsteady platforms that are designed to throw and drop you into deadly hazards. So you'll want to have a large amount of lives going into these worlds. And there's also there aforementioned shoot-'em-up stage. If you're not prepared for it, or if you're not good at shoot-'em-ups, you can potentially deplete your entire life-stock. In this game, it can all fall apart for you in a hurry.

But you'll want to stay with Superfrog in spite of all of that. It's very difficult, yes, but it's also fun and rewarding. Its gameplay is addicting and makes you want to persist and endure long enough to achieve victory. And if you're able to beat it, you'll feel incredibly satisfied (and probably greatly relieved). You'll feel like a god gamer and someone who has now gained enough power and skill to beat the toughest platformers in existence!

And Superfrog's being able to evoke such strong feelings and emotions is one of the big reasons why you should definitely seek it out and play it.

Closing Thoughts

 Superfrog is a weird one for me. It's a game that I really shouldn't like. It has a lot of annoying and questionable aspects: It encourages you to move along at a speedy pace but then punishes you for doing so. Its sloppy slope physics are always causing the action to get out of control. At times, its level design is intentionally cruel. It loves to use cheap tricks (blind drops into fiery pits, springs that rocket you into unseen spikes, sudden enemy spawns, and such). And all too often, its action makes you feel so nervous and paranoid that you become prone to screwing up even the simplest of jumps.

Yet despite my having many issues with Superfrog, I still like it a lot, and I consider it to be a very good platformer. It's a fun and addicting game, and it keeps you engaged in a way that other platformers simply can't. It puts you on edge and makes every bit of progress feel like a huge, meaningful achievement. It puts you through the wringer and evokes the most extreme negative emotions, but at the same time, it inspirits you and makes victory feel amazingly rewarding. And those special qualities help it to punch above its weight and become a must-play platformer.

"But is Superfrog as good as the best Mario and Sonic games?" you ask.

Well, no. It's not quite on their level. It falls just short of greatness.

But still Superfrog is a topflight platformer, and certainly it's one of the Amiga's best games. That's why I strongly recommend seeking it out and playing it.

 Over the past few months, I've had the chance to play a couple of the Amiga's most-well-regarded platformers--games like Yo! Joe! Beat the Ghosts, Ruff 'n' Tumble, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy Doo and Flood--and I've found them to be of varying quality. Some of them range from "decent" to "pretty good" while others are sloppily made and tough to play.

But I can see why Amiga enthusiasts are fond of games from the latter group, too: Even when Amiga platformers aren't of the best quality, they still show themselves to be daring and experimental in strange and wonderful ways. And consequently, they tell an intriguing and fun story about the Amiga and its values and provide some very interesting insight into the minds of the people who developed for the platform. That's what makes them worth playing.

So the Amiga's platformers aren't quite as good as console platformers, no, but still they're creative and interesting, and I've had fun spending time with them. I'm happy to have played them, and I hope to discover many more like them.

 But so far, Superfrog is the best of the bunch by a significant margin. It's on a much higher level than the standard Amiga platformer. And it compares favorably to many of our favorite 16-bit platformers. It has all of the things we look for in such games: spirited action, delightful visuals and music, smooth controls, and rewarding challenges. Also, it also has the most important quality: It's fun to play! It's fun to jump around and soar across environments. It's fun to explore stages and collect their many items. It's fun to listen to the game's music and observe its activity. And it's fun to make progress and achieve victory.

So yeah--Superfrog is a very good platformer and one that every fan of the genre should check out.