Woody Woodpecker's Frustrated Vacations

All of this just works. ― Todd Howard

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Férias Frustradas do Pica Pau
This game sure is frustration in CARNAGE.
Genre(s): Platform Platform(s): Sega Genesis Sega Master System Release Date: October 1995 Developer(s): Tectoy Publisher(s): Tectoy Country: Brazil Successor: Woody Woodpecker Racing

Férias Frustradas do Pica Pau (Woody Woodpecker's Frustrated Vacations) is a game developed and published by Tectoy in October 1995 for the Sega Genesis and the Sega Master System exclusively in Brazil.

Story

While driving, Woody Woodpecker and his friends decided to take a picture, after taking it Woody's friends disappear leaving a letter from Buzz Buzzard. Woody must go to different levels and save each of his friends from characters from the show.

Good Qualities

1. Stiff controls, Woody controls like a car that starts in 3 seconds.
2. The copyright text screen in the Genesis version is missing. Is unknown if it is an unused behavior from the game or Tec Toy did not code the text at all.
   • Such mistake was fixed in the Master System version.
3. Similar to Doraemon on the Famicom, the game suffers from artificial difficulty. Woody can get hit from almost everything.
4. For a 1995 game, the graphics look kinda poor. Even the SNES version of Batman Forever looks better than this.
5. Due to how the controls are so stiff (as mentioned on WIAF#1), jumping is a huge problem.
6. The Genesis version uses GEMS as its sound driver, which was an generic source for companies in Americas.
7. While Easy (Fácil) mode fixes some gameplay problems such as infinite pecking and increased invincibility frames, you cannot get the final fight against Buzz Buzzard (Zeca Urubu) in order to save Pauline unless if you are playing in Hard (Difícil) mode, which in turn, it means you cannot get the true ending.
8. The true ending is pointless: It is just Woody saving his friends and driving to the sunset.
9. The 2nd level is a pain since the little mice enemies hurt you when you get near them, even jumping doesn't help.
10. Some items does not give an clue of what they're for. The most prime example is the money bags, which gives you Continues once being collected.
11. Just like Mickey Mousecapade, the boss fights are super difficult.
12. The Master System version is worse, thus the graphics are still poor, The controls are still stiff, while the screen is more bigger and you can see enemies more clear, it doesn't fix the difficulty. It also recycles sound effects from Ren & Stimpy: Quest for the Shaven Yäk (originally released on Game Gear and ported to Master System by Tec Toy themselves) and the speech sounds are missing.
    • Even worse the framerate is running at 30 or lower instead at 60!
13. While you can attack enemies with your beak by simply pecking, the beak's hitbox is weird and hits doesn't register on enemies / objects sometimes.

Reedeeming Qualities

1. At least the game is still playable unlike most other original Tec Toy games.
   • The Master System version is still finished, unlike Battlemaniacs.
2. While the Genesis version isn't so impressive in terms of graphics, the graphics on Master System version made it being one from multiple 4Mbit (512kb) cartridges on the system's library.
3. Save for an compilation of episodes from original cartoon series on 3DO, the game is unique for being based in the Classic era of Woody Woodpecker cartoons.
4. The game also features other Walter Lantz characters such as Chilly Willy, Smedley, Andy Panda and back when Universal Studios had the character rights, Oswald the Rabbit.
   • This also marks Andy Panda and Universal Studios-era Oswald's first and only appearances in any game.
5. An great majority of musics from the game was re-used in other Genesis games made by Tec Toy in 2000s.

Reception

Super GamePower (Brazil) gave an final score of 3.2 out of 5 for the Genesis version. The reviewer said the first game [from Tec Toy] is literally someone's first kiss: It never feels done right.

While there are a very few reviews online, this game has been poorly received for it's bad controls and it's MS-Paint graphics.

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