Video game titles are meant to inspire players. They are supposed to either indicate what a game is about, or to entice you into wanting to play it. To tease as to what the game may entail. At the other end of the spectrum we’ve had some utterly bizarre choices for game names that have been equally memorable. No-one can forget Sony’s range of Fat Princess games for example. And this latest game I’m taking a look at is another that falls into that category – the platformer Sigi: A Fart For Melusina from Sometimes You…
Sigi: A Fart For Melusina – The Story
As with any platform game, you’d expect it to have a story behind it and Sigi is no exception. Here you take the role of our flatulent heroic knight who is off on a brave quest. In a typical platform game cliché, he is out to save the love of his life – the mermaid Melusina. What ensues is a side-scrolling platform game, filled with strange creatures to avoid and defeat, coins to collect, secrets to find and bosses to defeat. And all in the name of love…
Looks Familiar
The game, developed by Pixel.lu, has a retro 16-bit look to it. For those of you who grew up with classic arcade games in the 80s as soon as you start playing you immediately feel at home and it looks and feels remarkably like the Capcom classic Ghosts ‘n Goblins. Now this certainly isn’t a bad thing as the 80s platformer is still held in high regard today. From the beginning the game not only resembles the seminal classic, but even uses similar weapons. Within a few minutes, combining this and the charming visuals and I was already drawn into the game.
Hidden Depths
Despite being an obvious homage to Ghosts ‘n Goblins, there’s much more to Sigi – A Fart For Melusina. You start off with a limited number of lives at your disposal but these can be increased during play. Extra lives can be found in bonus chests, or earned for every 100 coins you collect. In addition, tiles are scattered around each of the game’s 20 levels spelling S-I-G-I. Collect all four on each level to be awarded another life.
Lives aren’t the only things that you need to be on the lookout for though. Food can be picked up to boost your health. There are a range of weapons to be found as you progress through the game, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and plenty of hidden treasures to be found.
Platform Tropes
The developers are obviously fans of the Mario franchise. As well as coins, there are hidden areas to be found in each of the levels. Some are easier to find than others, but they all contain extra coins, and often other surprises and bonuses for collection. There are also the obligatory bosses to be encountered and these appear every fifth level. They vary from the absurd to the surreal and while they can be tough at first they’re not impossible to beat. There’s plenty of humour mixed in with each though and it’s clear that the game never takes itself too seriously.
Gameplay
Sigi is wonderfully addictive and captures the fun and compelling gameplay that I used to love from classic platformers of the 80s and 90s. It’s not the biggest of games, and the developers themselves estimate that many gamers will be able to complete it in around an hour of solid play. But most importantly it’s great fun and has a lot of solid replay value. Despite it’s relatively short playtime, it’s the type of game that can be enjoyed repeatedly, as you would with most arcade games.
One thing I did particularly like was the use of the map screen. While we’ve seen this game mechanic used before in countless platformers, it’s quite an important element in Sigi. When it comes to playing the game, you can either play from the beginning or continue from any level if you have already played previously. If you choose the latter, you can select exactly what levels to play. This is important because you will only start with the basic three lives. If you only got as far as one of the bosses, you can choose to replay the earlier levels, build up a stock of lives and then go straight to the boss you need to defeat as the game returns you to the map at the end of each level. This feature makes bosses more manageable and the game far less frustrating and generally a lot more fun.
Ooh Shiny!
Despite its retro styling, Sigi – A Fart For Melusina looks fantastic. The characters are superbly animated and are full of personality. Backgrounds are detailed and the four-layer parallax scrolling is smooth and highly effective. The are some great visual effects keeping within the retro theme and some neat day/night transitions to add extra variety.
There’s also a typically cute chip soundtrack running throughout that adds to the game even more. Sound wise it’s everything you’d expect from a retro game… with the exception of Sigi himself who seems to have a slight flatulence problem and tends to fart on a semi-regular basis! Yes, it’s immature… and yes, I loved it!
Overall
This isn’t the deepest of games that you’ll play on whatever console you own and it’s not one that will go down in history as being one of the all time greats. But it IS a great conversion of the PC original and when it’s such a fun game to play, it’s long term status doesn’t matter. It’s a great platform romp and whether you aim to complete it as quickly as possible, or just play to enjoy it casually, it’s great value for money at just £3.99 and is a breath of fresh air. For those of you opting for the PS4 version, it’s got the added bonus of being Cross Buy giving you the PS Vita version free as well!
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