Psycho Fox
Eternal Cuddly Game #1
Type of Game
A perpetually speeding Parkour session, with a background of hatred for monsters... and love for drugs.
Release date on our machines
1989 just about everywhere there was a Master System, except in Brazil, which only got it in 1995 (hehehe). And Japan didn't get it at all! (double hehehe).
Developer
Vic Tokai Corporation. A company that, um, made a whole lot of stuff, including video games. It still exists today!
Publisher
SEGA (oh reallyyy). Or rather SEGA Enterprises Ltd. as the company was called until 2000, and headed by a certain ‘The Rich Man’ in the game's credits.
Psycho Fox: available on... well, nothing, nowhere in fact (nothing official anyway).
Here is the very first game I've ever held in my hands. In fact, I probably didn't, but I've convinced myself that I did, and my everyday life is getting brighter. My father was already playing the console by himself before I was old enough to press the buttons on a controller. Maybe he bought Psycho Fox imagining that... well, I don't know. I can't remember when or why he bought it. And neither does he. If he bought it to introduce me to some nice, lovable creatures, he must have left out the word ‘psycho’ in the title, and taken a poor look at their faces on the box. And yet it's clear that they have a few problems with mental stability. Did this pose the slightest problem for anyone? Not at all! My dad was hooked in five minutes, just like me! This game entertained us in a way that no other form of entertainment could have done. Well, entertained... Psycho Fox above all made me completely obsessed with platformers, and probably even video games in general.
Turbulent Introduction
Crazy Discovery
I didn't realise it because I couldn't compare, but Psycho Fox offered some pretty insane replayability. You could morph into a fox, a monkey, a cheetah (a tiger actually, but I've always said cheetah, so it'll stay cheetah) or a hippo at any time during a game. This often gave access to new sections of levels, as each animal had its strengths and weaknesses, to brave the many paths of a huge and sprawling level design. I imagined it to be incredibly big, anyway. Even after completing the game ten times, I always had the impression of discovering a new route, or a new way to die like a moron. But why Psycho, then?
Ah, that's just what the fox is called. And he runs like hell too. There's a lot of talk about the frenetic pace set by Sonic, except that two years before he was born, a zany little fox was darting mega-fast (especially in cheetah form), taking a demented swing on big elastic poles, bouncing on flying drums, ricocheting off the water with his buttocks, and cracking the sky to discover secret passages. So the blue hedgehog didn't invent the wheel (just the spin and dash and vertical loops, OK). Sure, all this is a bit detrimental to the gameplay. It even erases any trace of playability, I must admit. Although I may have realised this when playing other stuff later on, I'm not about to aknowledge it in public.
There were FOUR different ways of defeating the enemies (jumping on them, punching them in the face, running through them after drinking an invulnerability potion, or swinging a small bird from a distance that smashed everything in its path), which was just incredible. Ah, you could expect them to fall into a hole by themselves too, that bunch of idiots. It seems to me that this title was meant to be a direct competitor to Mario (Alex Kidd had already given up on it), but it didn't succeed, I don't think I'm teaching anyone anything there. Even though Sonic eventually took over, there was a lot of potential radiating from these animals on amphetamines. Even in the ‘sequel’ Decap Attack, which takes place in the same setting, you can't see the slightest bit of a fox moustache. Poor guys, it must not have helped their case.
Having discovered video games with Psycho Fox, I hold Psycho Fox responsible for all my mental problems linked to a propensity to harbour nostalgia for my childhood, in a somewhat exaggerated way. In truth, any other game would have put me over the edge if it hadn't been for this one, but my resentment falls on this one, too bad. It has to be said that I've been obsessed with it for a long time; how long exactly? I'm not sure, but several years, no doubt. That's quite a feat for a five years old kid of who only eats café liégeois from the local Continent hypermarket. Yeah, even the Continent chain gives me nostalgia, I did say I had problems, right ?
Nutty Atmosphere
Despite the fact that all the critters seemed to be completely nuts in there, the general tone remained cheerful and good-natured, even in levels full of skulls, even in the dark secret underground tunnels. I was convincing myself of this, although some of the monsters scared the hell out of me, like the super-angry jumping mushrooms, or the fox skulls that fell from their totems, their eye sockets shining with a demonic red glow. The different settings were no slouch compared to other more famous titles in the genre; between Japanese architecture lost in the forest, a desert haunted by a sort of giant Garfield, a snowy world with icicles to destroy, a temple forgotten in a swamp... there was plenty to travel through, as long as you didn't dwell on the bland background.
I loved the textures of the second world, which reminded me of grilled cheese or stylish aperitif biscuits like Tuc Soufflés (blown Tuc in english ?). And let's not forget the cloud world with its blowing tubes (and not blown Tuc). The whole mess gave off an atmosphere that was as improbable as it was magical, enchanting my pupils every time I inserted the cartridge into the console. A premise that would suit a lot of other games, but I want to associate it with Psycho Fox, and nobody else. Did I just say nobody ? So now I'm treating Psycho Fox as an individual in its own right. Come on, one more neurosis to add to the rest.
A madness of a soundtrack
If not the one I admire most, Psycho Fox's O.S.T. gives me more nostalgic thrills than any other 8-bit compilation. Sometimes happy, sometimes melancholic or disturbing, but always a little cheeky. There's nothing Psycho-Foxesque about it, but with hindsight, I'd still recommend listening to it in very small doses, so as not to risk blacking out and waking up to find your house on fire. That said, if you think back to 1989-1990-1991 and even later, nothing made me more believe in my own invincibility than this! Kids can put up with so much stuff, can't they? I used to sing during games, then between two game sessions, then before the next ones... without a break, so it really did go to my brain, after all. I wonder if it was eating into my father's patience, because I don't remember him begging me to stop, maybe I was jumping around and singing at the top of my voice, but discreetly. I'll have to go and inflict myself on some of Fumito Tamayama's other creations, just to see if it feels as much like living on acid as in Psycho Fox.
Eternal Freaky Nostalgia
This game crystallises the whole era of weekends spent at my father's house in Rouen (next to the Continent hyperstore), once every three weeks or so; from the time he picked me up from school on Friday afternoon, until I returned to my mother's house on Sunday evening. It was a very different world from my mom's in Le Havre, with dozens of miniature cars instead of G.I. Joe's or Cosmix figures, walks in the forest and a lot more. Joe or cosmix, walks in the forest with Gribouille the dog instead of staying indoors to be scratched by the cats, a super-nice dad as opposed to a narcissistic pervert step-dad and a mother as cold as Pluto's ice... and of course the frozen crepes while watching Thalassa on TV, so delicious then, so awful now, but still better than the disgusting quiches Lorraine eaten in silence in Mom's kitchen.
Those Thalassa opening credits, though... Big Nostalgic banger. Well, I had to go to sleep afterwards, which wasn't easy when I still had gallons of dopamine flowing through my system because of Psycho Fox. In the end, the game difficulty wasn't too much of a problem, and the ultimate challenge was to beat the final boss with as many lives as possible. But our play sessions did a lot to create a bond that did me a world of good. And BAM! Right in the cliché of father and son bonding over fishing, but replacing the rod with a Master System controller. Much more stylish.
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