Frogger: The Great Quest
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Whose idea was it to suddenly turn Frogger into a humanoid pirate frog?
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Frogger: The Great Quest is a 2001 platform game developed and published by Konami of America in association with Papa Yeti Studio for the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. The Game Boy Advance version was also released but is a separate game.
Gameplay
Frogger: The Great Quest is a platform game aimed at a young audience. The objective is to lead Frogger across a kingdom in search of a princess. There are hints hidden in each level, on how to complete it. Bonus scores can be achieved by collecting coins and gems, and some stones give activated abilities. There are enemies in the levels, that Frogger can kill with a melee attack or a ranged attack. Frogger can jump, and when in the air can glide by pressing the jump button again. Frogger can also swim.
Plot
Frogger's quest for a princess begins when he hears about a frog that was turned into a prince by kissing a princess. First, he chases after a rumor of a river princess, which turns out to be a boat. Then he finds his way to "Fairy Town" where he is given 5 tasks he must complete to be allowed to meet a fairy princess.
Why It's An Ugly Frog
- Insanely ugly graphics and visuals that can be compared to budget games released in the late 1990s on older systems, since the graphics have horrible color palettes and also are undetailed to the point of making it look worse than some PS1 and Nintendo 64 games, games such as Rayman 2: The Great Escape look better than this and it was on the PS1, N64 and Dreamcast and the game came out in 1999, 2 years before this game came out.
- The biggest examples of the unappealing and grotesque designs for the characters, like Frogger's ugly redesign and other characters look frightening.
- The textures are also really unfinished and ugly looking too, since they lack colorful colors and also are undetailed and feel like it came from a PS1 game due to how bad it is, this is not helped by the horrendous lightning.
- The characters' models are also terrible, even for a 2001 game, and almost feel like bootleg characters rip-off from some other franchise, especially the characters other than Frogger, such as the kids that feel like they were rejected from shows like Horrid Henry (which ironically was released later than this game).
- The monsters are the worst offenders, due to how ugly they look and also because of how polygonal they are, not helped by the fact that their characters' designs are already ugly and look like reject from the Donkey Kong Country and Rayman games.
- The controls in this game are some of the worst of the franchise, as they are not only extremely bad and clunky, but they also are a huge mess, meaning that you would have no idea of what you were doing, which itself is already a major red flag since this is a platformer and good controls in a platformer is mostly needed for making them good, or at least making them not bad.
- Speaking of that, are very clunky and unresponsive, which isn't surprising considering how badly this game was programmed and also made, this is pretty much the reason why the game is so unplayable.
- The platforming sections are bad since they are hard to get through because the controls are so bad that it is clunky and that sometimes, the platforming sections are almost impossible to do without difficulty, this is mostly the reason why this game is so bad in the first place and also why it feels unplayable to play (as stated before).
- The camera is really bad even for the time the game was released since it is extremely troublesome to move and feels like it wasn't finished and also feels like they took Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon camera and made it much worse than it already is, in which that game was also developed by Konami (Mystical Ninja is an amazing game, however).
- Not to mention that the camera could maybe make the game harder (even though it is easy) and could cause some cheap deaths at times, especially if there are enemies that are behind you and the camera moves at the worst time possible.
- Bad cutscenes that not only look ugly but also have horrible animation, terrible-looking movements, and also having a very washed-out color palette, the cutscenes also had a bad story, as you can already know. Thankfully the next games, especially Frogger Beyond, had way better cutscenes than this.
- The voice acting and dialogue are repetitive, cringe-worthy, annoying, and sometimes laughable. Frogger's voice doesn't fit his character at all.
- In one part of the game, when Frogger battles against Dr. Starkenstein, the latter says at one point: "Okay, this is pissing me off!". Yep, you heard that right, a profane word (depending on your view) is used in a game aimed towards a child audience. Although, it could have been an error made by the character's voice actor.
- In the beginning cutscene, there is an infamously bad moment when Frogger says "Find me a princess before I bust!!" when he wishes to find a princess for himself. This is a kids' game and lines like that are extremely suggestive.
- The storylines of Frogger that ask where the princess is, is extremely repetitive and annoying after a while, and not to mention that most of the times he asks that, the other people talk about something else, Frogger talks about the princess instead of the concerned thing, which make it even worst and more annoying.
- The character Frogger was flanderized beyond recognition and now became an annoying character that feels like he could been in shows like Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon or Modern Family Guy, due to how badly flanderized he is here.
- The main reason why his character sucks here is mostly that he is obsessed to kiss a princess to become a prince to live happily forever, while it isn't a horrible thing, that doesn't fit the Frogger character at all, but this isn't the worst part of his character.
- The worst part of his character change is also the fact that he says many inappropriate things for an E-rated game, such as "Find me a princess before I bust", this is also the reason why not only this version of Frogger is so much hated but also the game itself, not to mention that nowadays, Frogger is mostly remembered because of this game, which had nearly destroy his reputation as a character.
- Speaking of the cutscenes, while the game's story is coherent, it is very stale and predictable, and is very bland, it is also a huge downgrade from the previous games.
- The writing makes Frogger come off as a selfish-minded hero who wants to put the princess in a situation and he still expects to earn a kiss from her despite setting up the conflict, yet the princess still thinks he's attractive when Frogger defeats the final boss. If the game was written better, the princess wouldn't be into him.
- You attack enemies by spitting or using frog-fu at them instead of just simply jumping on them, which doesn't even fit the Frogger franchise at all.
- Speaking of the way Frogger attacks, the combat in this game is extremely terrible since the combat is mostly based on luck and also, it is bland at the same time, jumping on the enemies would have been better.
- Also, the combat is unresponsive to the point of making it one of, if not the worst combat system you will ever see in a game, sometimes the attacks take 4 seconds just to do one punch, we are not making this up!
- The combat will even be the only reason why you would die in the game since it is so unresponsive and underpowered that you might get killed a lot because of that, and this is why the combat of this game is one of if not the worst in gaming history.
- Aside from Frogger himself, most of the other characters' designs are bad since they look ugly, this is especially the case with the Goblin, which is the worst offender, since not only do their character models feel like they came from a PS1 game, but also their design overall look insanely ugly (even more than Frogger redesign) and their colors schemes are atrocious.
- The music, while good for the most part, is not even fitting.
- Some of the music also can sound bland or forgettable at times, but those still aren't that bad and can still be looked as the best part of the game.
- The game does not even feel like a Frogger game. It feels like a cheap and generic three-dimensional platformer game with the Frogger character thrown into it, which in itself isn't a bad thing except for the fact that Frogger is not himself in this game.
- In terms of that, Frogger's redesign, as stated above, looks terrible. In the original games, he was an actual frog, while in this game he's an anthropomorphic animal that wears clothes and speaks in natural language instead of croaking.
- It is so painful to play that there is no replay value at all, and even if there were some replay values, you might never come back to this game after you beat it.
- The game is very easy, as it was aimed at younger gamers. It is also possible to beat the game without taking a single hit, no, we aren't joking.
- Another thing that makes this game easy is the fact that there is a huge number of shortcuts, intentional or not, this would also make the game shorter to beat as stated before.
- Some of the levels are easier to finish when you play with the glitches than when playing normally, for example, in level 3 you can just go to the pirate ship and do a jump to go higher in the board, without even collecting the keys, this makes the levels way shorter too, as stated before.
- In fact, much like Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric if you die, there isn't any penalty since you don't lose a life, and for the most part, the checkpoints are close to the place where you die.
- The Microsoft Windows version does not allow you to change the graphical quality or resolution.
- The shop where you can go after finishing a level is useless since it is just for a collection, and you can't buy any power-ups or anything like that for example, you can skip the shop every time and beat the game without any problems, not to mention that doing 100% in this game is useless too.
- The game could also pass as a Rayman rip-off due to the universe of the game and the characters feeling like they come from the Rayman franchise, this is especially true with Rayman 2, you could replace Frogger with Rayman as the protagonist and nothing would changes.
- The game is very short, as it can be beaten in two hours if you are smart or patient enough.
- The level design is awful and is much worse than even Frogger: He's Back on PS1, since there are many platforming sections that are extremely annoying due to how bad the controls are, many instances where it is confusing to navigate in the level or even some poor enemies placements, the glitches also doesn't help at all.
- Not to mention that it changes the genre of a level quite often such as linear, open-minded, or being a maze, the linear being the most common, but even if it is linear, the levels would somehow be extremely confusing to navigate due to how badly designed the levels are in this game, not even Doraemon: Nobita to Mittsu no Seireiseki was that confusing (even though that game is good, and not confusing for the most parts).
- Even worse, the levels sometimes are so poorly designed that there are a lot of shortcuts in them, for example, in the first level, the thing that would make it long is the tutorial but you can skip it and finish it in only 3 minutes, or the third level where you can beat the level without even bothering to collect the keys, and it can be finished in only 2 minutes, yes it's that poorly designed and this game might be the game with the most short cuts ever in a game.
- The loading times are long and are extremely boring to look at too, since sometimes it takes a whole 10 seconds to load a level, which is incredibly annoying after a while, and this might indicate even more that the game is rushed.
- The number of glitches in this game is awful since at times you might be stuck in a wall, have some textures being glitchy, or even have some massive shortcut that will make the game shorter to beat and finish faster a level.
- It might be the most glitchy Frogger game ever made, due to how badly programmed this game was, and this could even give Mega Man X6 and X7 a run for their money, despite how glitchy those games we're.
- Another of those glitches is the collision glitch, and there are many walls where you can walk on despite not being supposed to have ground for you to walk on, this can even be seen in the very first level of the game, which is already a major red flag and could show the nightmare of a game this is to play after you do this glitch in the first level.
- Also, some of the parts that are not supposed to be ground or platforms, you can sometimes use them for a platform despite that you aren't supposed to land on them, this shows how rushed this game truly is.
- Occasionally, you can get stuck in sections of a course, which forces you to reset your console or close the program on your personal computer, depending on which port you play.
- It's not even possible to collect all the coins, gems, or even all the magic stones in the game because of where they're hidden in some levels such as Slick Willy's River Boat, The Catacombs, and Goblin Trail.
- The Catacombs level is the absolute worst in the entire game since there are many instances where it is extremely confusing to navigate and also lasts long if you don't know where Princess Dar is, not to mention that even the beginning is awful.
- In the Catacombs level, you can't kill ghosts, but they can kill you, which doesn't make any sense.
- Overall, this game had a decent concept but was horribly executed and nearly destroyed the reputation of not only Frogger himself but also the entire franchise, since nowadays the franchise is mostly remembered for this horrible game and not the 1981 original game or any other 3D games except maybe the PS1 duology, the reputation of the franchise would not be redeemed until the release of Frogger Beyond, which was a great game (despite some flaws) and saved the franchise from being completely dead, but it saved the franchise for a short amount of times.
Redeeming Qualities
- The soundtrack is decent, despite not being that fitting.
- Lumpy the toad makes his debut and would return in Frogger Beyond.
- It has its "so bad it's good" moments, especially in the hilariously bad cutscenes, the voice acting, and the game's glitches that bring so many moments that are so stupid, corny, and awful that it's funny to laugh at.
- The Game Boy Advance separate game, while mediocre, is better than this game, and can be fun to play at times, since it features many improvements over this awful game.
Reception
Frogger: The Great Quest received extremely negative reviews and is considered to be one of, if not the worst Frogger game ever made and also one of the worst games of all time to the point of sometimes being compared to other notoriously bad games such as Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and even Bubsy 3D, the game got a score of 32/100 on Metacritic for the PS2 version, making it the lowest rated game of the franchise on the website.
Nowadays it is also considered to be one of, if not the worst Konami game ever made due to all of its flaws.
Because of that, Konami will change the gameplay formula from Action-platformer to Platformer grid-based arcade-like instead. This reboot is also considered to be a commercial failure since it sold poorly.
Trivia
- Apparently, the game was meant to get a GameCube and Xbox port but both were canceled, possibly due to the negative reception of the game.
- The game received a strong cult following over the years, mostly because of how bad it is.
- The "I wish I may, I wish I must find a princess before I bust" line became a meme.
Videos
References
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