Retro Game of the Day — Conker’s Pocket Tales (Game Boy Color, 1999)
There is so good it’s bad and then there is just plain bad. Conker’s Pocket Tales falls into the latter unfortunately as this top-down adventure/puzzle game desperately attempts to emulate Zelda: Link’s Awakening but ultimately fails miserably.
It’s hard to imagine that this is Rare’s follow-up game to their phenomenal Donkey Kong Land Game Boy series which provided a great interpretation of the Super Nintendo Donkey Kong World titles on Nintendo’s black and white handheld.
Rare certainly had the talent to develop an adventure game that could compete with the likes of Zelda considering the companies pedigree. It’s just that everything here feels substandard. The character designs lack polish, the overworld music is grating, and the puzzles don’t offer much of a challenge.
The best thing about Conker’s Pocket Tales is how much of an oddity it is in Rare’s lineup. It’s the predecessor to Conker’s Bad Fur Day, which turned the entire cute mascot adventure genre on its head by turning Conker into a bad-mouthed furball in an R-Rated romp filled with potty humor and hijinks.
Conker’s Pocket Tale acts as a reminder that somewhere out there exists an N64 Conker game that was molded in the same sweet lovable mascot genre that was popular at the time. It does beg the question: If Conker’s Pocket Tale had not been a critical mess would we have ever born witness to Bad Fur Day?
First featured at retrohandhelds.com.
