Earthworm Jim 2 (GBA)
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 Remember the first game GBA port ? While it wasn't perfect, at least it was more groovy compared to this awful port!
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Earthworm Jim 2 is a 1995 run and gun platform video game and the sequel to Earthworm Jim, and the second and final game in the Earthworm Jim series developed by original creators Doug TenNapel, David Perry and Shiny Entertainment. It got a Game Boy Advance port in 2002, which unlike the other versions was universaly panned, in which this page will cover.
Why It's Not Groovy And Why It's Not Groovylicious
- First off, to note this port's biggest flaw, it is so badly made that the port feel more like a bootleg than anything, and not to mention that it is of an extreme low quality, in fact it is so much of a low quality port that it ended up being possibly one of, if not the worst GBA port ever made, details will be explained below.
- Unlike the first GBA game port, this game had absolutely horrible graphics that look almost nothing like the original, even for a 2002 GBA game as not only does the graphics are so bad but even it doesn't look like a GBA game but rather a SNES game with it's grear graphics poorly converted to a NES game, hell even the NES bootleg of Earthworm Jim 2 (both of them) look better than this, and they were actual bootlegs!!
- The reason of why they are so terrible is that they are extremely pixelated, at such it is very hard to look at them for more than 10 minutes (especially if you had weak eyes), and because of this, the sprites look horrible and nothing like the original.
- They are also blurry looking, which is probably the reason why they are horribly pixelated here, as the original didn't had any problems like that.
- The colors are overly satured, to the point of making the sharp pixel art of the original being even more downgraded here, as if the developpers of this port hated the franchise and wanted to create the worst game out of it by not only butchering the graphics but also the gameplay.
- Downright terrible controls, they are even more unresponsive and stiff than the first game on GBA, and they are so delayed that the game is completely unplayable, one exemple would be the jump, which is actually the worst part of the controls, when jumping, Jim feel like a car that cannot change directions without being more tight and responsive.
- Another horribly butchered thing from this port is the soundtrack, which is incredibly poor because not only does they didn't know how to port the original game soundtrack to the GBA, but also it sound very unfaithful and very ear bleeding, it's even unbearable to listen to in some of the levels, in fact it is so bad that it may be one of the few game soundtrack to never, ever listen on headphone with the risk of having your ears hurt.
- Because of the horrible controls, now the level design isn't even good now because it was never adapted with such broken controls, and was also not adapted with terrible hit-detection.
- The credits for some reasons show a lot of effort put into them, while the entire game is not showing any effors, at least in the North America version, not only this is a major insult but also it show that they didn't even care about this port quality.
- Also, speaking of that, the credits in the Europe version are more generic, and also why does they feel that they had to change the credits style in the PAL version ?
- When you lose all your lives, instead of going to a continue or game over screen, you directly goes to the title screen, meaning that there's no continues, and the fact that it doesn't had any game over only make it lazy, sure some GBA games such as Revenge of the Smurfs had no game over but that game for exemple had infinite lives, so at least it was justified, but here there's nothing about those kind of things.
- Several of the sound effects are missing, further proving that this port was incomplete.
- The game has a glitch that causes it to sometimes generate a password that, when used, causes you to immediately die!
- This show how poorly programmed this port really is, as not only does the game is so glitchy but also the fact that this port is so awful might probably be because of being extremely poorly programmed.
- As said in WING#6, the game is extremely glitchy to the point of being much more glitchy than the first EJ GBA port, there's even a video that describe alone almost all the glitchs of the second level, and it last for 10 minutes!!
- And yes, the level 2 is probably the most glitchy because there's so many glitchs in it such as enemies appearing out of nowhere, or even texture that disapear.
- There's even some collisions glitchs, which are so vague that it make the game even more unplayable and doesn't even make the atrocious hit-detection any better, this is possibly one of the few games where it is completely unplayable from start to finish, and yes there's not even any levels where you can feel good playing this game.
- The sound effects are horrible and make you want to turn off the sound of the game, just like with the music of the game, this is because they are very loud, and that they are unbearable to listen to.
- It's so poorly programmed that sometime in some levels it might crash, and the only thing that you can do is to reset the game.
- The framerate is also incredibly bad and very stiff, to the point of being even worse than the first GBA port, here it is so bad that it lag, and it might even move at 15 FPS at times!
- Even if the game was playable, this would still being very problematic because this port is already too unplayable and terrible, and the horrible framerate make it much more unplayable than it's already is.
- Overall, this port is so bad that it even considered to be the absolute worst Earthworm Jim game ever made, being even worse than Earthworm Jim 3D and Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy, and overall it end as one of the worst Game Boy Advance port ever made.
Redeeming Qualities That Are Groovy And Are Groovylicious
- This is the only version that let you choose the languages, and the full game is translated.
- Despite the issues, the graphics are still pretty much faithful to the original Earthworm Jim 2, despite being too blurry.
Reception
Unlike the other versions, this port was universaly panned by critics, fans and even gamers, to the point of being considered to be one of the worst game on the GBA, and even one of the worst port ever made.
IGN had given it a 4.0 (Bad) out of 10 and stating that "the action tends to slow down in the most unlikely locations... and the gameplay's inconsistent... load a game where you instantly die for no apparent reason". It has a rating of 2.69 on GameFAQs.
Trivia
- This is the last port of Earthworm Jim 2 (if we doesn't count the addition of this game to the Nintendo Switch Online SNES games).
Videos
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