Mischief Makers

Mischief Makers
"Shake Shake!" — Marina Liteyears
Protagonist(s): Marina Liteyears Genre(s): Action Platform Platform(s): Nintendo 64 Release Date: JP: June 27, 1997 NA: October 1, 1997 EU: December 12, 1997 AU: 1998 Developer(s): Treasure Publisher(s): JP: Enix WW: Nintendo Country: Japan

Mischief Makers (known as Yuke-Yuke!! Trouble Makers in Japan) is a 2D platform game released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997, and the first 2D platform game on the Nintendo 64. It was developed by Treasure and published by Square Enix and was published by Nintendo. It is also the first game Treasure has made that was not made for a Sega console, and the first Treasure game to be released on a Nintendo platform. Following Gunstar Heroes, McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, Dynamite Headdy, Yu Yu Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen, Alien Soldier, Light Crusader, and Guardian Heroes, it's also Treasure's eighth game to be released.

The game follows a green-haired cyborg maid named Marina Liteyears, who is on a quest to rescue her creator, Professor Theo Liteyears, from the evil Clancer Empire.

Plot

The player-character, a robotic maid named Marina Liteyears, journeys to save her kidnapped creator, Theo Liteyears. The story takes place on Planet Clancer, a world on the cusp of civil war due to the actions of its Emperor and his Imperial forces. The Emperor brainwashes Clancers to kidnap the visiting robotics genius Professor Theo Liteyears.

Gameplay

Theo's creation, the player-character Ultra-InterGalactic-Cybot G Marina Liteyears, pursues the professor and grabs, throws, and shakes the obstacles in her way, such as enemies, floating "Clanball" platforms, warp stars, and missiles. Indeed, almost all game objects can be grabbed, which lends towards the shake-based combat system. Marina can shake "grabbed" objects to throw them as projectiles or to find loot. Objects sometimes change functions when shaken, such as items that become homing missiles and guns with multi-directional shots. Some drop red, blue, and green gems, which restores her health. The health gauge in the corner of the screen shows the amount of damage Marina can take. The player can store up to two additional stock lives. Yellow gems hidden in each level extend the final cutscene's length. Marina can run, jump, and boost (via jetpack) in the eight cardinal and ordinal directions. She can also slide, hover, and roll.

Why It Makes Mischief (In a Good Way)

1. There are many different gameplay mechanics that make the game stand out.
2. The protagonist, Marina has a special jetpack power which allows players to boost around the place, and hover in each level, which is a pretty cool concept.
3. Marina can also grab items from far away, and she can grab almost any object in the game.
4. The game also has very good platforming mechanics, which is pretty nice.
5. Marina can also ride on bikes, use each of different weapon, and also destroy blocks using strength.
6. Gorgeous and fantastic graphics, especially by Nintendo 64 and 1997 standards, since the game has a visually appealing mix like 2D sprites and 3D textures, the backgrounds look very nice to see, which is very reminiscent of a Sega Saturn game.
7. You can find a warp star to finish a level, but you can chose to collect every single gem in the level for more points and a better rank.
8. Every boss in the game is insanely memorable.
   • Cerberus Alpha, the first Beastector boss. A high speed battle against a jackal-man riding a giant robot motorcycle that turns into a dog, while you ride on a cat to catch and throw all of his attacks back at him, which includes missiles and a Wave-Motion Gun.

Alongside ActRaiser, it's proof that Square Enix is capable of making a good platformer, unlike what they did with Balan Wonderworld.

Bad Qualities

1. Marina's catchphrase "Shake-Shake!" can get annoying to listen to after some time.
2. Similarly to how Wario World has creepy faces for boss battles, this game has a lot of creepy faces for platforms. This was due to Treasure attempting to emulate Haniwa, ancient Japanese terracotta clay figures used for burying the dead and mummification.
3. In 3-10 "The Day Of", there is a section called "Mathfun" where you must solve math problems, already you would imagine that, which if you are not good at math, can be extremely difficult for you, similar to Sonic '06. (However, if you are a really good at math, it may be a somewhat easy for you)
4. Due to a legal dispute between Treasure and Enix over the rights of the Mischief Makers IP after the release of Rakugaki Showtime, Mischief Makers has never seen an official re-release in any form.
5. Ass Pull: The Beastector turning out to have originally been human has no bearing on the overall plot and comes out literally at the end of the game. The only hint to it prior is Merco mentioning Earth as one of the Empire's targets after his boss fight with Marina.

Trivia

• This was Treasure's first game on a Nintendo platform, their first game on a non-Sega platform and the first game of theirs that was not published by Sega, instead, it was published by Enix (in Japan), who, six years after this game's release, would go on to merge with Squaresoft to form Square Enix.
• This was the first Treasure game to have a female protagonist, in this case, it's Marina Liteyears.

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