Prehistorik Man

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Prehistorik Man is a Platformer originally released on Super Nintendo in 1996, ported to Game Boy Advance in 2001, then to the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2009, with this version later grandfathered into the Nintendo 3DS eShop when the Nintendo 3DS was released, and with a version coming to mobile devices in 2013. With so many ports being released of this Platformer about a caveman hunting for food for his tribe, surely this is a top-tier entry in the genre, right? Right?

At the very least, the game’s visuals look lovely, making use of colorful 2D visuals with good animation and a lot of personality, and backed by a catchy mellow soundtrack and joined by cartoonish and silly sound effects. Despite this game’s age, the presentation has aged pretty well.

The same cannot be said for the gameplay. Atrociously bad hit detection, occasionally unresponsive controls, confusing level design that frequently forces you to redo parts of a level when you take a wrong turn, leaps of faith… while this game does a good job hiding secrets throughout the journey and keeping things interesting with good variety, this hardly matters if the core gameplay is frequently frustrating.

I suspect some players may be won over by Prehistorik Man’s charming presentation, and others may find it taps into some of that good old-fashioned nostalgia. However, I suspect most players will find this game’s charms wear off soon, once they lose patience with its variety of issues. Skip this one.

tl;dr – Prehistorik Man is a port of a game first released on Super Nintendo, but this was far from one of the greats of that platform. While this game has a good presentation, it suffers from a laundry list of issues, including poor hit detection, frequently unresponsive controls, and convoluted level design. Unless this game holds some nostalgic warm place in your heart from its earlier releases, you’re better off skipping it.

Grade: C-

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