Robin Hood - Game Boy Color - Review

Whilst browsing eBay for games to review I stumbled upon a title I’d never even heard of; Robin Hood for the Game Boy Color.

 Finding any information online about the game proved strangely difficult with seemingly only a short IGN preview on offer. It seemed about as obscure as a game could be, with no reviews, retrospective or otherwise, discussions or even a walkthrough to be found. What I did find however was a few intriguing screenshots and that was enough for me to want to pick it up and give it a try. So here goes what, as far as I know, is the game’s first ever online review.

 Robin Hood for the Game Boy Color, not to be confused with the 1991 movie tie in game, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, was co-published by both EA and Light and Shadow Productions in early 2001. The game, based on the famous English folk legend, was developed by a company called Planet Interactive Development who, from what little information I can find, were a small Parisian team who mainly worked on a handful of equally obscure Game Boy Color titles before closing shop in 2002.

The story begins as Robin Hood leaves his family castle to join King Richard’s crusade in the middle-east. Robin saves the King’s life but later finds himself captured and bound in an ottoman gaol cell. After many years of detainment he finally manages to break free of his chains and upon escaping the prison, sails back to England. When he returns however he finds the country in turmoil as Prince John is conspiring to unite the nobles and take the throne in Richard’s absence and what’s more Robin’s fiancé Marian has been kidnapped and is due to be married off to a Count.

The game plays as a light action-adventure-RPG and takes place over fifteen missions in which you, as Robin Hood must find keys and switches to unlock doors, complete tasks for villagers in exchange for information, and use your bow and arrows to defeat various enemies.

Robin controls responsively with the D-Pad and can move and fire his bow simultaneously and in eight directions.  Pressing the B-button will toggle on a strafe mode to lock a firing angle which comes in very handy for dispatching the numerous enemies found in the game.

Sadly Robin doesn’t have a bottomless quiver though and with no melee weapon on offer you must be careful to ensure he doesn’t end up completely defenceless. Fortunately there are plenty of extra arrows littered throughout the levels so as long as you’re not too wasteful, running out isn’t too hard to avoid.

Other pick-ups include hearts to refill one of the three sections of your health bar, and also a larger heart which increases your health capacity by one, at least until your next death. The hearts are not particularly frequent though and so great care has to be taken to avoid the many arrows, javelins and melee attacks that will be constantly coming your way.

As you progress two more characters will become playable; Friar Tuck and Little John. Once unlocked, switching between the three characters can be done instantly at any time with a press of the select button and each character has their own distinct weapon to battle with.

Little John is armed with his famous quarter-staff which he can use as a defensive shield against incoming projectiles and also as a melee weapon to defeat any enemies that get too close. Unlike Robin however he must be standing still to attack meaning that only moving enemies can be safely dealt with as he himself will take damage from trying to get within striking distance of a stationary enemy.

Friar Tuck, is certainly the least useful as his magic attack is similar to but weaker than Robin’s bow with the first hit only stunning the enemy and second hit being needed to finish them off. 

Robin is definitely the strongest choice in most situations, however each character has their own set of lives and health so strategically switching between them is a good way to prevent a game over screen.

 At the end of each level you’ll be presented with a password to continue your progress from. It’s worth noting that the password will include details like your current health and ammunition so taking the time to complete the level in good shape is definitely encouraged.

Whereas most levels are purely action based with the objective simply being to reach the top of the map, others attempt to be a much more RPG based affair. These levels take place in a village or town with a host of denizens who all require some very basic form of a fetch quest to be fulfilled.

These will often be as simple as going to the inn-keeper who will then ask you to talk to the blacksmith who will then ask you to talk to the tailor and so on. The characters and dialogue are completely gameplay oriented with no personality or small talk on offer. In fact talking to anyone other than the specific required character will result in a generic statement such as ‘you have to go and see the inn-keeper’. No additional hints or clues are given and no directions either and as the game doesn’t have a map feature you will have to walk around blindly trying to find the right building to enter or character to talk to.

Occasionally the villagers will also ask for money and this can be gained from killing the usual assortment of henchmen which are found lurking around the streets. Entering and exiting any building will cause any enemies that you had previously killed to be respawned though. This can be useful for gaining the required amount of money but is more often just a pain in the tights when you are constantly having to dodge projectiles whilst blindly searching for the required location.

The graphics are really quite stunning for a Game Boy Color title. The backgrounds are beautifully drawn with tonnes of detail and colour throughout. The player characters look fantastic too with the eponymous hero looking particularly impressive and in a thoroughly nice touch you can see his hair and cloak flapping in the wind when standing still. It’s clear that Planet Interactive had some very talented artists working for them at the time. Bizarrely though some of the still pictures shown when talking to the NPC’s are comically bad, and look as though they were knocked up in five minutes on Microsoft paint.  I mean just look at some of these. What makes it worse is that they re-use the same pictures over multiple characters and often you will be asked to visit identical NPC’s one after the other.

The music is fairly limited with only a few tracks to listen to throughout the game. It’s all very generic medieval-fantasy video game music and although it’s certainly nothing to get excited about it fits the action well and never grates on the ears.

Overall Robin Hood is, sadly, a pretty poor game. The RPG levels are excruciatingly dull and almost completely spoil the game with their abundance of tedious fetch quests and lifeless characters and sadly they last far, far longer than the far more enjoyable action based levels. Another major issue is the complete absence of a difficulty curve. The game has no XP system or weapon upgrades to unlock and all of enemies encountered throughout the game are found in the first level. This means that the opening stage is literally as difficult as any other in the game, if not more so.

For some reason though I can’t help but have a huge soft spot the game. The visuals are so charming and the controls are so solid and enjoyable and I can’t help but want to go back to it. I can’t help but think about how good this game would have been with a little more time and effort put into the dialogue and level design. Just giving the various villagers an ounce of personality would have gone a long way into making the RPG sections feel less tedious and a little variation, or a puzzle or two in the action sections would have lifted the game even further.

As such the game feels like a great engine with a lacklustre game attached to it. Regardless there is definitely some fun to be had here and although it’s not common the game can be picked up very cheaply. So if you like what you’ve seen, why not seek out a copy of Robin Hood for the Game Boy Color and take to the villages and castles of medieval England to win back the Maid Marian and foil the devious plans of the evil Prince John.