James Pond Codename Robocod

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

The James Pond series started out in 1990 with a release subtitled Underwater Agent in Europe on the Amiga and Atari ST, with a port to Sega Genesis in North America in 1991. Its sequel, alternately named James Pond Codename Robocod, James Pond Operation Robocod, or Super James Pond, was also released in 1991 on Amiga, Atari ST, and Sega Genesis, with ports to numerous other platforms afterward.

This particular release on Nintendo Switch came out in 2019, and oddly isn’t a port of one of the original releases of the game, but a version later brought to the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance in 2003 with reworked levels and visuals, and the PlayStation version also added cutscenes (not present here). So players nostalgic for an earlier version of the game may find themselves disappointed here.

The game’s 2D pixel art visuals are colorful and expressive, but not especially memorable. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is memorable only in that it shamelessly copies themes from other media, like the Robocop theme song or various Christmas songs. Ah yes, for those unaware, Codename Robocod is a Christmas-themed game, something that’s not really clear in the marketing.

Players wander through various mazelike levels at the North Pole, needing to find and rescue numerous elves strapped to dynamite before heading to a pole that marks the exit. To do this, your armor-wearing walking fish can jump on enemies, stretch up to grab the ceiling to move along its underside, and occasionally use power-ups. The stretch mechanic is potentially interesting, but not really put to great use here, and everything else is nothing special. In fact, there’s some slippery movement, poor hit detection, and poor level design here that makes Codename Robocod a pretty sub-par Platformer.

When it comes to options, you can choose to enable infinite lives, there are separate options to adjust sound and music, and… that’s it. The game auto-saves at some points, but beyond that there aren’t even save states.

In the end, it’s difficult for me to give a James Pond Codename Robocod a recommendation when it alternates between mediocre and sub-par, especially on a platform with an absolute wealth of great Platformer games. Unless you have some great nostalgia for this game, you’ll want to toss this fish back in the sea.

tl;dr – James Pond Codename Robocod is a classic Platformer where you play a stretchy armored walking fish saving Santa’s elves at the North Pole. Yeah, I don’t know either. In any case, this is a sub-par Platformer with hit detection issues, movement issues, and poor level design. Unless you have nostalgia for this game, get something else instead.

Grade: C-

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