Dennis the Menace

I've been doing a lot of reviews of good games, I think it's time to do a bad game this time, and to start us off is a game I played when I was a kid and liked but realized there are some flaws when I grew older, Dennis the Menace for the snes.  Let's see if it holds up today.

The story is loosely based on the 90's movie of the same name.  Dennis is a little kid that messes around with Mr. Wilson, a grump that can't stand Dennis.  Things change when a thief comes to town and steals Mr. Wilson's gold, so it's up to Dennis to stop the thief and return the gold, this is a pretty simple plot comparing it to my past reviews.

Let's look at some things I like:  This game does have a good sound.  The music has a catchy beat, the cats make a realistic cat sound, it sounds good overall.  Dennis does control well, and I like how the game has open levels that you can explore, instead of having it all be linear.  That's all of the good I can think of right now for this game.

The negatives are a bit more heavy handed than the positives:  First off, this game is surprisingly creepy.  When you turn on the game you get this eerie song, and then Dennis shouting, "Hey Mr. Wilson," before getting this weird carnival like music.  However, the scariest thing to me as a little kid was on the first level in Mr. Wilson's house.  When you go upstairs, you will see a bunch of beds, after passing the beds a jack in the box is seen, and then all of a sudden Mr. Wilson comes out and grabs you, giving you a game.  I had nightmares of Mr. Wilson going downstairs when I was a little kid.  Also,there are some platforms in this game that look like you can make them, but the game makes the jumps difficult and frustrating.  The goal of the game is to find all of the coins, but it's hard to get them with some difficult jumps, and trying to get past Mr. Wilson.  You have three weapons, a slingshot, a squirt gun, and a pea shooter.  The squirt gun is terrible, it only stuns mice, why would I want a weapon that can only stun mice.  Stick with the slingshot and pea shooter, there better.  You have a lot of time to beat a level.  The timer starts at 999 seconds, which is around 16 minutes or so.  When you lose a life, the clock pauses at where you last were and continues from that point when you start your next life.  It doesn't really matter though, because they give you so much time that you can beat a couple levels in Super Mario Brothers quicker than this  one level, and that's another problem, the levels drag on, it get's boring after a while.  Finally, and this is a nitpick, why does Mr. Wilson have so many beds, cats, and fish?  It doesn't seem right.

Overall, Dennis the Menace was fun when I was little, but now that I'm older I can see that there are a lot of flaws.  However, I do have some fun sometimes with this game, like showing Mr. Wilson to friends who don't realize it.  I recommend the snes version to those who want the game, but it's not worth buying on Amazon people.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.