As for Hook, I haven’t revisited it in a while. Now I’m curious if I would still like it today. The last time I played it was maybe 2011 when I originally wrote this Hook review on my original RVGFanatic website. I should bust it out again and see if I still feel the same or if I’m more in your camp. But yeah, the game does have a Capcom-esque quality to it, and it’s a charming little sucker.

This was the sixth SNES game I ordered from eBay back in 2009, and I remember at the time feeling quite highly of it (I mean, WAY), though I found that with each playthrough dedicated to it(and the more games I played) that my appreciation level for it would decrease which I especially found out to be the case when I last played it two years ago. The main factor behind that: Peter Banning’s pacing! His normal walking pace is monumentally slow which drags the game somewhat to the point that it’s a design flaw, though his obscure running pace alleviates the issue a tad bit (obscure on account that holding down the Y button while moving would result in Peter not fully showing that he’s running until two or three seconds after the fact… this is a no-brainer, a sidescrolling platformer shouldn’t take that long to show that you’re running if it requires holding down the button, it should be *immediately* apparent!).

I honestly felt that the slow moving pace in Quintet’s ActRaiser 2 was more warranted there than it was here particularly if you go at a slow and steady pace unless you wanted all enemies to swarm around and overwhelm you, but apples and oranges. What a huge detriment on Ukiyotei’s part; not to mention that eventually playing their Skyblazer in 2012 would not aid Hook’s case as in that game Sky’s pacing was more flighty (no pun intended?) and acceptable by default (it was still short and easy to a point, but his moving pace was acceptable in my book). Also, the floaty nature (a deliberate choice, I think, given it’s Sir J.M. Barrie’s creation Peter Pan but as an adult) of Peter’s jumps while not flying. =(

That’s a shame because there is plenty to like and appreciate about Nintendo 16-bit Hook: I like how Ukiyotei converted many of John Williams’ themes from the movie (the original material’s good too), visually it is vibrantly pretty to look at, I like the style designs and how some settings were transitioned to game format, there is a Capcom-like charm to it (not Capcom-made, but if you didn’t know any better you wouldn’t know it), but the handling of its gameplay and pace let the game down for me (also, the game ending’s tone when Peter and Tink are going their separate ways compared to how the movie handled it left a bad taste in my mouth)–of course, this is just a personal gripe for me, I don’t expect it to affect other peoples’ enjoyment of it (if people like the game, more power to them; I just wish it was better thought-out because aside from that the game is harmlessly okay, in my opinion). So much potential it had; but as far as video game movie licenses go, there are far worse.

I’m sorry if I sounded like I was ranting (’twas not my intent), but just thinking about how my appreciation for this game started out high at one point but then nosedived with each subsequent playthrough, it makes me feel disappointed–at least there’s Skyblazer which is by all accounts a big improvement on Hook (thanks to the augmented pacing alone but also its strongly versatile gameplay).

To each their own