Sneaky Snakes
Mega Cruel game #2
Type of game
Not the Snake on the Nokia 3310, but something like that. A much better version, but a little worse too.
Release date on our machines
June 1991 in the USA. Just 1991 in Europe, but nobody bothered to give any more details.
Developer
Rare Limited. You know, the guys who made Donkey Kong Country, Battletoads, Goldeneye, and a thousand other successful things. Yeah. Them yeah.
publisher
Tradewest, Inc, a company born out of the defection of a top SNK executive, then killed off by a Midway takeover (fascinating).
Sneaky Snakes : available nowhere at all, poor little disrespected reptiles.
Despite his cinderblock charisma and oyster IQ, I loved the Game Boy. Small problem: it belonged to my big sister Elena, who didn't live permanently with me, even though she sometimes visited her father. Her father and my stepfather = same person. No need to go into detail, but the family tree did grow some pretty twisted branches. So I didn't have access to the little gray plastic grail all the time, let alone any decision-making power over the games I found on it. A sort of double aura surrounded this console; both time-limited pleasure, and joy of the potential new releases I was about to discover. Sneaky Snakes was one of those nice surprises that appeared overnight in my hands. One of the first, I think, after Tetris and Super Mario Land 1, I really enjoyed playing as those hungry little snakes, so much so that even after the arrival of Super Mario Land 2, I often went back to them (well, OK, especially when I got stuck in SML2). I didn't really give up until Link's Awakening showed up, and then I'd get stuck there too, so... I'd fall back into Sneaky Thing again.
One more Embarrassment
And then I had to admit that in this game too, I couldn't progress beyond a certain stage. And when I say a certain stage, that must mean the third level, tops. Yeah, I was bad at everything, leave me alone. Fortunately, the Game Gear came to my rescue, materializing in my hands around this time. My very own portable console! I was finally able to stop making a fool of myself on Elena's calculator. Of course, I had just as much trouble with SEGA's little one. But at least nobody was looking over my shoulder.
Tail bite
Of this game, apart from the fact that I was too fond of throwing myself into it in the mode of instantaneous-pleasure-no-big-deal-if-I-end-up-in-a-game-over-in-five-minutes, I only remember a few snippets. The horizontal scrolling platformer, the snake that grows by eating things... and the enormous stress of the flying axe that slices you in a thousand pieces, if you take too long to finish the level! What I remember from rereading some of the online texts is the scale just before the exit door, which is used to weigh our serpentine avatar. If the legless lizard has eaten enough bugs and reached the desired weight, the door opens. If not, we're off again, with the sword... well, the axe of Damocles hovering over our scaly, wrathful little head. Sneaky Snakes is the sequel to Snake Rattle N Roll, with a very similar concept, but in 3D. Yeah, a sequel that goes 2D, not the other way around.
Although, on Mega Drive, Snake Rattle 'n' Roll saw the light of day in 1993, so many players may have experienced a transition from 2D to 3D after all. Nothing less than the Rare studio handled the development of this title, and maybe that explains why I think it's so well done. Well done, both in terms of graphics and controls. Frankly, I thought it looked great, much better than Super Mario Land (OK, two years older), but it had nothing to be ashamed of in comparison with Super Mario Land 2, Duck Tales or Looney Tunes. And then there's the fluidity of the thing. The snakes react really well. I can't recall any hitbox problems or control latency. Crunching critters (it starts with fish, but quickly evolves to drops dripping from a cave ceiling, jumping seeds, or the bodies of other snakes, among other more or less horrifying foods) to gain a new tail section (yeah, I don't know how else to say it, sorry) gives you a pretty damn exhilarating feeling.
Especially with that beak-snapping animation, the overly ASMR sound that goes with it, and the little bits of food that fall out. Wow, the kind of insignificant detail that makes a game extremely endearing. I hear there are sixteen stages. Boy, was I ever going to get to the end! So we go through mountains, caves, flooded tunnels (the classic underwater stage), forests, then more caves, we walk along waterfalls... Yeah well, that was a quick tour, wasn't it? That's the complaint I hear most often about this game. It gets a bit boring in the long run. Personally, I haven't had the time to get bored, but I'm willing to trust people who have actually played it. Although... I find that the level design is quite fresh, in the end. There are a few bonuses to juggle between, including one that lets you fly by inflating yourself like a helium balloon. The number of things to chew on in order to move on to the next level increases throughout, intensifying the challenge.
You discover warps in all directions, under the sort of manhole covers you find everywhere (at least I used to call them manhole covers), and turn them over with a shake of your head (physically impossible for a snake, but we'll let it be). This unlocks shortcuts, bonus stages... And wait until you see the face of the final boss before you say you're bored! It'll make you rethink your game straight away. Because I've never seen such a creepy chicken in my life. A giant chicken/ghost/skeleton that spits out spiky balls, of course. He also wears a bob, the ultimate accessory to make this bird of misfortune terrifying. And once defeated, our favorite snake can save his girl, of course. Did anyone in the video games of the early nineties have any problems other than saving his girl? I'm afraid not.
Cheap Tune ?
We owe the music to a certain David Wise, who, as an employee of Rare, penned the compositions for Donkey Kong Country, Battletoads and Super Smash Bros. Melee. I imagine he must have his fair share of fans. In the case of Sneaky Snakes, I really liked the groove of the welcome screen and the first two levels. It's so uplifting, you feel like putting on your sunglasses and bragging around in the streets. But with kindness. As for the rest of the music, either I don't remember it or I've never heard it. And frankly, I have to believe that fate played in my favor by preventing me from progressing too far in the game, because it doesn't break three hooks on a snake (very bad, too bad). It reminds me of Dynamite Düx, but not for the better. I've overdosed on cute, skanky chiptune while listening to a longplay. And while it's all right at first, I find it doesn't quite fit in with the story of a snake who travels the world and braves a thousand dangers. Cute as he is, no disrespect to anyone, blah, blah, blah. It's a good thing I didn't ingest too much of that stuff as a child, because it would have done some serious damage to my brain.
regret or rejection
Would I want to play it again today, assuming I'm a true retrogaming fan? No, that's fine! I still have my childhood experience and that's enough for me. Strangely enough, I can still see myself tryharding like hell on it, not in Beau-Papa's camper van as with all the other Game Boy games, but at Elena's mother's, who's also my aunt (twisted family branches, I told you). And that's worth its weight of nostalgia too. If I had any regrets, they'd be about the console itself. I would have liked so much to have it around more often, to have played more games on it, or even to have owned one of my own! I would have known Kid Icarus, Kirby's Dream Land, Gargoyle's Quest, a Mega Man here and there and Wario Land!
I would then have followed the logical evolution by acquiring a Game Boy Advance, a DS, then a 3DS and finally a Switch! I would have had a totally different experience, deprived of Game Gear, its Mortal Kombat port, Slider and Sonic Triple Trouble, but so cool nonetheless! Would I even have deigned to set eyes on the family PC? Hell, I can't imagine a life without Dungeon Keeper, Age of Empires or even War Wind! On the other hand, never having had my brain fried by League of Legends makes me want to be able to travel to parallel universes. A timeline where I would have sworn allegiance to Nintendo since I was four, another where I would have adored SEGA to the end, even one where I would have owned a Neo Geo, why not? But in that particular case, my parents would have had to change jobs years earlier. A sort of Sliders focus on video games (the TV show, the parallel worlds, all that). Get me Jerry O'Connell on the phone right now!
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