Frogger’s Journey: The Forgotten Relic

Frogger, the road-hopping frog who never learned to swim, is back! Frogger's Journey: The Forgotten Relic is the latest GBA title featuring our intrepid adventurer.

While the concept behind the original Frogger may seem a little blasé comparatively against most of today's 3D platform games, it is actually a good fit for handhelds, with its simple, yet addictive gameplay that lets gamers jump right into the action. Frogger has always been about getting that frog across the road hazards, often solving physical puzzles along the way, without getting squashed. However, in Forgotten Relic, this familiar format has been changed to include a strange marriage of an RPG story, interspersed with the traditional arcade levels.

The beginning of the game introduces players to the story, which goes like this: Frogger's grandpappy, Dr. Finnius, is missing. It appears that there are some very interested people in his recent archeological discovery of an ancient relic, and no one knows where it is, or where Dr. Finnius may be. Frogger travels around town, talking to various characters and even participating in a few quests, on his quest to find his grandfather.

This is a distinctly RPG format, with various characters that Frogger must interact with in order to advance the story. After solving certain quests, Frogger is then directed to a new open location on a map, which features the arcade element of familiar Frogger gameplay: a top-down view of Frogger hopping and jumping past hazards, collecting items along the way. Once each level is completed, it's back again to the RPG story mode. And thus it goes for the remainder of the game.

This mixing of genres may have seemed like a good idea to jazz up an "old-style" game format, but the actual implementation here isn't. It's completely schizophrenic in practice, being jerked back and forth from such different gaming styles. The save feature which requires that the game be saved each time in the RPG story mode is very annoying, as it means that each time the game is started anew, Frogger must travel back to the docks to get to the world map. Having a save option at the beginning of each arcade level would have been nice.

The arcade element is the best part of the game, and features familiar gameplay with new powerups that Frogger collects along the way to use with his OPART, a strange device left by his grandfather. With the OPART, Frogger can select various powerups as they are discovered, and assign action buttons to them. All these levels are quite fun, and the action is challenging without being so difficult as to frustrate. Some retro elements are present, as well as new localities.

The RPG mode isn't nearly as enjoyable, and is frequently boring and tedious. Traveling around asking people questions is not what Frogger is all about. The one neat item here is the inclusion of an Animal Crossing element, which allows Frogger to buy household items and decorate Dr. Finnius's house, but this could have been added to the game easily as a side mini-game, without the story mode.

The graphics are very good, and feature cute hazards that look adorable while they're killing you. Kids will really enjoy them, and so will the adults. The sound is fine, nothing exciting, but not irritating, either.