Super Morph (SNES) review "Some games should only leave the drawing board on account of unique ideas. "

Some games should only leave the drawing board on account of unique ideas.

This is the case with Super Morph, a puzzle-platformer game released in Europe. A scientist needs some cogs for his latest invention, and thus, he sends his recently-created metamorphic blob known as the Super Morph to head through thirty six levels. In each of the diverse levels, you must undertake a journey to retrieve the cog and make it to the exit.

However, there are many obstacles in the way of the Super Morph. To counter these, it can change into four different forms; the rubber ball, which can bounce high, the water drop, which can slip through cracks in the floor, the bowling ball, which can break blocks and walls, and the cloud, which can rise up. On the flip-side, there are also hazards for each of these forms; the rubber ball will inflate when it touches spikes, the bowling ball will burn when exposed to fire, the water drop will sink when in liquid, and the cloud can be sucked in by fans.

You can’t just transform into the various forms, though, at will. First, you must collect morph stars and icons of the four different transformations. A morph star is used every time you change, as well as an icon of the particular type. If you run out of morph stars and try to morph again, you have to restart; and if you get to the exit with a deficit in any department of your transformations, you also have to restart. Same goes for not having the cog with you. This forces you to try and experiment with new ways to make it through the four stages of nine levels each.

But too many of the levels are mind-wracking.

Many of the levels that I went through took me hours, and in two cases, days to figure out. What makes it worse is that they are all of the “I-could-slap-myself-for-overlooking-something-so-simple” variety, and it’s difficult to progress when the feeling of ineptitude is on your mind. And the next level would be unforgiving. It would be merciless, harder for me to complete than it is for a certain webmaster to defeat Phantom.

Also, there are a number of very hard to make jumps, even more merciless than in regular platformers. In one particular level, as a bowling ball, you must roll partway into a pit to grab a morph star and then roll out, or else you’ll fall into the pit. In another level, as a water drop, you must drop down partway and then freefall to the left, or else you’ll fall through a hole and end up going where you don’t want to go. Lastly, there is the whole aspect of the cloud form; the cloud can never go down, and while you can keep it from rising, if you let it go even the wee bit too high, tough luck; you won’t be able to fit through a lot of doors.

The only thing that is really decent about this game is how innovative it is; with graphics and music only being average, the unique ideas that are the driving force behind this game are also the only items that might actually let you make it through all thirty six levels.

Community review by yamishuryou (March 19, 2005) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.