A Bug's Life
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| A Bug's Life (video game) | ||||||||||||||
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 Ahhh, life as an ant!"
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A Bug's Life is a 1998 platform game based on Pixar's 1998 hit movie, A Bug's Life, developed by Traveller's Tales (Console and PC versions) and Tiertex Design Studios (Game Boy Color version) and released for the PlayStation, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Color.
Why It Galores
- The game does a great job at making you feel like a real bug with the bigger insects and larger objects such as acorns and sticks and having them properly scaled to the size of how a normal ant would possibly view it.
- The game ties in with the movie really well, by recreating scenes such as the scene where Flik flies across the Riverbank to get to the city, and Flik assembling the fake bird to scare Hopper and his gang away.
- The cover art looks very cool and is far superior from the Game Boy Color Box Art. Here it shows Flik riding a leaf like it's a surfboard or a hoverboard away from Hopper's gang, with Hopper himself flying towards Flik, whereas the Game Boy Color Box Art only shows Flik standing and watching you.
- The Booklet itself is pretty charming too, with it being decorated with some characters and objects such as leaves, and it does a nice job at introducing people who've never played the game before to the game and shows a few things that the player might encounter, such as levels and enemies.
- The Booklet also contains some pretty neat tips for newcomers, such as reminding players to not pick up a weaker berry than the one that they already have in page 15.
- The tutorial is well balanced, with it being simple enough to understand for younger audiences, but not too annoying at the same time for older audiences.
- The level design is marvelous, and revolves around running, jumping, and obtaining seed upgrades scattered throughout the stages to reach certain areas or even secret areas too, and the game utilizes the seeds very well and balances it out decently, by not having a short amount of seeds so that they don't feel useless to have in the game, but not too many seeds so that they're not overused.
- Speaking about the seeds, each of the five types of seeds have different abilities, and you can achieve four upgrades for each of them (Three for the yellow seeds) to make the game a little bit more easier to play, with these abilities being about helping with reaching new heights, and gaining upgrades and Berries
- You can also combine a few of the seeds to achieve other items and secrets as well, such as using a dandelion and a few propellers to reach a token in The Tree.
- The graphics are great for 1998 standards, and have a lot of details put into them, such as pebbles scattered throughout the ground that you stand on, and some cracks being shown on a few walls.
- Speaking about details, the detailing in the game is great, such as plants sprouting to life when you bounce on them, and even the smaller details are pretty charming as well, such as red berries bouncing off stronger enemies such as Grasshopper's and Cockroaches.
- The controls are nice, and it does feel good to zip and bounce around throughout most of the stages.
- Despite the poor camera, there is a way to lock the camera in place and to reveal a little more of what's near you, which can save you from a few frustrating moments throughout the game.
- The soundtrack is amazing and catchy, and greatly helps give out the atmosphere of being an ant, and woodwind instruments are layered throughout the soundtrack to support the theme of being outdoors.
- The sound effects are also cute too, such as the Grain sound effects, and the sound effects also help with supporting the fact that you're outside.
- The game uses a strong grasp of the source material by implementing some things such as the Dewdrop Telescopes that Flik invents at the beginning of the film and the Harvester that Flik uses to make more Grain, and the Harvester even attracts nearby Grain to the player if they are close enough.
- If the controller happens to get unplugged, the game will pause itself and wait for you to plug the controller back in and to continue playing, which prevents a few frustrating moments throughout the game, such as losing a piece of health or dying.
- The enemies are rather creative and once again fit with the theme of being an insect, with a few examples being Earthworms and Mosquitos, and each of the enemies have their own methods in trying to fight against the player, such as the Earthworms popping out of the ground to hit you, and the Roly-Polies shielding their selves when you try to throw a Berry at them.
- The creativity of the game is outstanding. For an example, your health bar is resembled by a leaf, and the more hits that you take, the more bites that the leaf will have, and even the options menu is creative and cute too, since that there are multiple things that represent each option, such as Flik either being tired or shaking on the vibration screen.
- Despite Flik slowing down when carrying a seed, he can still squash enemies by throwing the seed onto them, so Flik's not completely done for, and sometimes Flik won't even get hit if an enemy touches him if you're lucky enough.
- If you get lost in a few of the stages, you can activate color pots(?) to help find your way through the stage.
- Despite the bosses being a bit of a spam war, the bosses do try to change things up a bit to goof you up, such as The Bird flying higher when you obtain the Gold Berry, Thud the Horsefly throwing Super/Blue Berries at you and Super/Blue Berry upgrades when you have the Gold Berry, and Hopper throwing White Berries at you and flying to multiple areas while his army tries to attack you.
- Despite Flik chattering a lot throughout the game, he never really gets annoying, and a few lines that he says are pretty funny sometimes, such as Flik saying "Are we there yet...." in Riverbed Run, or "Oooh, that's gonna leave a stain...." when he kills an enemy.
- Speaking about comedy, the game itself can be pretty funny at times too, such as the Booklet stating that "Flik can whack a flying Wasp right between the eyes (If the Wasp deserves it).".
- Each level has three tokens to collect, which adds some replay value to the game. These three tokens are the bronze token, which you can obtain by collecting all 50 pieces of Grain, the silver token, which you can obtain by collecting all four letters in the name "FLIK", and the gold token, which you can obtain by defeating every enemy (including the bosses in levels 3, 6, 9, and 12) with the Gold Berry.
- If you manage to collect all three tokens in a stage, you're rewarded with high quality clips (at the time) from the actual movie, and at the time of this game's release, the full movie wasn't available on VHS or DVD, which made this award amazing at the time.
- There are a total of 3 secret bonus stages hidden throughout the game as well, and they are hidden extremely well, but not to the point where they're unfair to find, with one of the bonus levels being found by having you bounce on five different Mushrooms in a row, with the fifth bounce sending you high into the air.
- The Nintendo 64 version adds a Challenge Mode, where you replay stages in the game, but you are required to complete a task in a certain amount of time, such as growing a Blue Berry in less than 30 seconds.
- The PC version also has upgraded audio with more clear sound effects, more clear voice acting, and better quality for the clips.
- The actors reprised their roles in this game, and the Nintendo 64 version might not have as much voice acting as the PlayStation and PC versions, but the Nintendo 64 version still has plenty of voice acting, and it sounds pretty clear too, both of which most Nintendo 64 games couldn't do.
Bad Qualities
- As stated earlier in WIG#13, the camera isn't very good, as sometimes, you might get hit by an enemy that you didn't see because it was offscreen. There is a camera locking button that does have its moments however, and it can also prevent a few frustrating moments throughout the game.
- The draw distance can sometimes make finding other items such as a Token a bit annoying, and it can also make navigating some of the levels a bit confusing as well.
- The Nintendo 64 version suffers from a choppier framerate, weaker graphics, weaker controls, and arguably weaker music.
- If you don't try to go for any of the three tokens in each stage and just try to bullet straight to the end of each level, you can complete the game in under an hour, so it's highly recommended to go for the clips instead.
- Riverbed Run is infamous for its maze-like structure design, confusing navigation, constant backtracking while carrying seeds very slowly, and for having 51 enemies attempting to kill Flik.
- The Game Boy Color port is terrible.
Reception
A Bug's Life was met with mixed reception throughout time. Most critics gave the game negative reviews when it was first released, however, as the years went by, other YouTubers such as Caddicarus, Phil Of Glimmer, and others praised the game, along with some web users as well.
Trivia
- Inside of one of the VHS tape boxes for the movie itself contains an advertisement for the Nintendo 64 version of this game that you could have signed and sent to a specific place to obtain a real copy of the Nintendo 64 version of this game before the expiration date, however, since that the advertisement is really old, the advertisement has been expired for a long time.
- There were planned Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, and Game.com ports of the game, but all of them were eventually cancelled.
- This game won the Greatest Hits award when it first released, and achieved around 1 million sales.
- This game won the Computer Children's Entertainment Title of the Year award at the second annual Interactive Achievement Awards, competing against six other nominees.
- In the PC version of the game, there is an unused model for a mermaid-like creature, along with an unused plant which might have been an earlier version of the exploding plant in Anthill, Part 2.
Game Tips
If you're in a level with no purple seed tokens and if you have a stronger Berry like the Gold Berry, do not pick up a weaker Berry, otherwise, you'll lose the stronger Berry that you have and trade it off with the weaker Berry that you got.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bug%27s_Life_(video_game)#Awards
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