oh yeah, something I forgot to mention: in Garfield+, the song that plays in the basement is an original song I composed. but yeah, all the other songs are obscure Nintendo tracks.
odie only existing to randomly bump into you is ludonarrative harmony, getting you into the character of Garfield by showing you why he hates odie so much
Yep. Taking Odie out of the game entirely would be a bad idea. Maybe some future modder can find a way to just reduce his aggression or something along those lines.
@@jasonblalock4429maybe a mode so any item not in it's proper place or in the item chests are randomly moved by Odie for a semi randomized playthrough.
I was thinking Garfield should have a dodge to make Odie less annoying, but now that you say it, giving Garfield the ability to fight back would turn this mechanic from being mildly frustrating to a genuine highlight. If they'd programmed it into the original game then I think a lot more people would remember it fondly.
that line - "i would rather have something unique than something good" - i relate to that super heavily. Balan Wonderworld ended up really pleasing me when some levels ask you to play with the unusual geometry and limited options. i would also, and have, played a game just to see the cat in it.
I wish my body would agree with my mind on that, these weirdo games feel like the concepts that push this medium further and deliver unequivical experiences, bit my body just wants to play Ridge Racer
I figured I was the only person to at least somewhat enjoy Balan. I like most things about it, actually. Though I'll still admit that putting most functions on one button (kind of, you know what I mean) is awful design.
@@mostlyghostly6615 failing at a control standpoint kinda means the entire rest of the game will suffer for it, no matter how good the design of the actual game is.
Not really if the game is designed with 1 button and the game is built out of those limitations. That isn't a bad design decision it's just dependent on how the game works with those limitations, also it's not even a 1 button game to begin with there are a select costume left and right buttons, so yeah @ghostly6615
I saw an ad for this in a toy magazine in 2004 when I was 11 years old. I was a big fan of Garfield back then, and I fantasized what this game could possibly be based on maybe two tiny grainy screenshots. I never once saw any version of the game in stores anywhere here in Finland, never heard anyone talking about it, never even saw any reviews. I thought it got cancelled, so it stayed as a mystery and a wild fantasy on the back of my head, right until now. It's weird seeing the reality of it like this 20 years later. My childhood expectations were crushed, but I feel no sorrow, because it was all in ways that adult me was entirely expecting. It's a weird feeling. Thank you!
ive always held the opinion of “a bad game is better than a boring or mediocre game” because at least when something is “bad” you can gain enjoyment by either making fun of it or having a guilty pleasure, when something is just… meh. it feels even worse because its a game thats SO CLOSE to being good but fumbles at the finish line
Same goes for lots of other kinds of media! Like, a “meh” movie or show, we forget about. It’s just a waste of time that you can’t get back. But a bad one? I am genuinely obsessed with Dorbees. It holds a place in my heart to this day
As someone who owns this game and played it on PS2 as a kid, the biggest game breaking problem for me that I'm guessing was fixed for th PC version was the loading times. I remember it taking like 2 minutes to get past the loading screen EVERY SINGLE TIME you went to another room. It made the game unplayable and was my least favourite game growing up as a result.
Back when I lived in Syria, games uses to come in packages in CDs, so you would buy a CD and have like 50 random games in it. I remember when my mom bought one of said CDs and this game was in it, me and my siblings used to find it pretty cool but we could literally not get past the first quarter of the game due to it crashing whenever you would go in the attic, which was a necessary route to continue the game lol
This is the Luigi's Mansion of Garfield games. Both have the main character use a vacuum to clean up a house (one is literal cleaning and one is figurative cleaning), both have animated cutscenes with context of why you need to clean up the house, they're both games where you walk around in a big space mostly about a home, both games have an end reward and both games have a dog (at least Luigi's Mansion 3 has a dog).
The licensed game for Wallace and Gromit:The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit also involved vacuums so it makes me think of that (though to be fair that was also kind of a thing in the movie). What other games were in the Vacuumlike genre
Holy shit. I love the degree of dedication you had just to give a licensed Garfield game from 2004 another chance to succeed. Props to the guy who also done huge work by reverse engineering a proprietary format for a licensed Garfield game from 2004. Also also, props to your friend who made a packer/unpacker for a licensed Garfield game from 2004.
I imagine the game accepts a copy of Garfield not due to a 2player mode but rather that Garfield is the only other character in the game with a model, the necessary movements etc etc. But that'd be great if true lol
Very cool effort on an VERY niche game! IMO, having a version that's just a "compatibility fix" without the music and dialogue changes could be a nice thing from a preservation side. Also, "remove Odie from the video game" lol. It's what Garfield would have wanted.
I cannot stress enough how much passion and personal projects like these inspire me. THIS video is my Bubsy 3D poster. With all the improvements you made, and the potential for others to fix and/or add what you couldn't at the time, this would be a great game to see people speedrunning, and just flat-out enjoying.
I imagine your 'inspiration' is you staring at the poster while whispering 'what could possibly go wrong?' and coming away from that enlightened and emotionally prepared for the day. You're a sick puppy, but I like you.
My favorite thing about this game is that it only has three cutscenes, and if you watch a compilation of all three, it tells a complete plot: >Jon threatens Garfield if he makes a mess, Garfield has to clean up the giant mess Odie made before Jon gets home. >Jon shows up early, and chews out Garfield. >It's implied Jon's threat was empty; we cut to him feeding Garfield lasagna.
Critrics: 0/10!!!! THIS IS SO BAD GRRRR!!!! NOTHING IS INTERESTING!!!!! IT DESERVES NO PRAISE!!!!!!! Clue: haha funny garfield cleaning game, it deserves a 4/10.
Good lord. Please, reduce your use of punctuation marks, one or two is more than enough to get your point across, anymore than that is irritating and comes across as amateurish/childish.
Honest to goodness, I used to play this game a lot as a kid, and even had nightmares about getting the bad ending in it - feels so surreal to see someone not only make a video about it, but patching it up to make it a more pleasant experience? That's, just, amazing
Tbh it seems like most garfield games were platformers Since they didn't know what to make out of garfield, But I have a concept here, The game would be called Garfield: Cat food (SNES, Genesis) Which is basically an adventure-Sidescrolling strategy game where garfield must steal all the food while preventing Jon from seeing it, So basically As I said you have to steal food from the fridge while keeping jon at bay, Garfield starts in random rooms in each level And must steal all the food from the fridge to beat the level, he has to go to the kitchen and eat all the food until the green bar is full, Jon will be wandering around, When passing him you're safe, But when he catches garfield eating the food, He'll chase garfield until he grabs him and places him outside, Jon will then chase garfield for the rest of the level everytime he sees him then, Garfield can set up distractions for jon, Like messing with the laundry, placing down banana peels which stun him, or by going outside just to knock on the door, etc, So that Garfield can steal the food succesfully, This wont stop jon though, When garfield gets caught three times he loses the level, Some levels are pretty different, The fridge would have a lock, And garfield has to find a key to unlock it to steal the food, but then has to put the lock on the fridge again to avoid suspision when Jon walks in the room,a level will have nermal in it, (For a mechanic) a level will have Garfield on the beach, a level where garfield has to pretend to be sick to yet steal more food, (mechanic) And a level where Jon is in a rush to get a bunch of chores done (The hardest level) Garfield can hide in some areas, Like in a vase, Under the table, under the bed, in a shelf, etc because jon in future levels will chase Garfield no matter what, and have an much more aggresive AI, Though odie can sometimes give your hiding spot away by barking. The game consists of 35 levels smand some replay value, Where you can play as odie after beating storymode, You unlock some bonus levels, And you can get a 3 star rating on every level, When playing as odie Garfield will be watching TV in the living room as just like odie, gives away where he is, By pulling up a sign that say (a slobbering dog was Here -->) Tbh this could've been a great concept for a game if it was made instead of a platformer, Since garfield has pretty mediocre games, And deserves better! There is a wiki with a game named Garfield Double trouble for the DS as a videogame concept, I think it it was said to be a a 2-D brawler I think it was gonna play like teenage mutant ninja turtles for the arcade
Theres this game on the SNES called Kid Klown in Cazy Chase. The game was reviewed by Projared and he said the game sucked, SNES drunk another game reviewer also said it sucked. But when I saw it I was more curious about it, and when I played it, it was fun. So this video really gave me a good feeling knowing that I can like bad games despite what others think.
As a fan of garbage jank, I wouldve liked if you had a version that included the horrible music and graphic design because I think that is very charming. At least the shitty ms paint garfield, like come ON, it reeks of neocities trash I love it
when you started going into how you fixed garfield, that made me SO excited!! older pc games like this are totally my jam so im extremely excited to play this for myself (ive just been playing the jumpstart 3d games, from the 3d virtual world kindergarten-2nd grade games to modded offline versions of the online game)
I remember playing through Bubsy 3D and finding it hard to hate. Sure, it isn't a good game... But I was able to find enjoyment out of playing it. I even played it enough to find out about a bug that lets Bubsy infinite jump by holding select and triangle, releasing select at a certain point and repeating.
imma be real with ya i dont think Bubsy 3D controls any worse than the other 3D tank control platformers of the time. In my opinion Ninpen Manmaru, the game that people call the Saturn's equivalent to Mario 64, feels WAY worse and all it really has over Bubsy is looking way prettier and being obscure enough to largely avoid the attention of retrogaming youtubers.
There is something oddly comforting about having a large house to explore in a digital environment. Particularly in older games where the 3D assets are more simplistic in design. Perhaps it recreates a sense of whimsical nostalgia from a time when, as children, everything felt larger and more vivid. Games such as ‘Namco Museum Vol.1-5’ and ‘Rugrats: Search for Reptar’ capture this feeling quite well.
I hope the developers for this game find out that there's now a community of people who genuinely appreciate their game and want to bring it to its full potential. I feel like this was probably a team of severely underpaid developers who were not given the budget or the adequate amount of time to create a fully polished game, but who obviously wanted to create a quality product with a lot of thought behind it. I hope that they'll be happy to find out that the game is slowly becoming the thing that they were trying to create!
I have a similar experience of trying a critically maligned shovelware PS2 game and genuinely vibing with it's zen gameplay: London Cab Challenge. It's an obviously unfinished and glitchy crazy taxi clone with an empty, unpolished city, weightless driving, and practically no challenge. But the soundtrack is chill trance music, and combined with those flaws, it gives the game a real surreal energy. Without any difficulty to it, it's easy to just zone out in this weird, broken little world. I'd honestly recommend playing it while stoned if you can.
this video is a really good example of a mentality i've been forming lately - that you should at least try to get into the intended gameplay loop as the devs intended (As much as one can figure that out) because even the worst shovelware has some level of intentionality in it's design, and if you can figure out how to get into that groove the devs lay out for you, you can very often get a lot more out of these random obscure games than the average person who'll bounce off of it in the first 5 minutes like a real life AVGN reaction. This is obvious on some level, but it's not uncommon to just judge older/less documented games as aimless slop without at least attempting to play along with the intended path.
Appreciate all the work that went into not just the video but into improving the Garfield 2004 experience for everyone. Truly doing the work to evangelize Garf '04, bless
Really appreciated the ending bit about forming your own opinion. Very bad trait of those who watch a lot of video essays or reviews to just take someone else's opinion as their own because it has the officialness of being a youtube video. The more love for art, the better, if you ask me, even if it's "bad", and the only way you can only truly love something if you appreciate it yourself. That Bubsy poster is absolutely awesome btw
12:27 the "scales talking" is a direction that was left in as dialogue. the idea i think was that a weighing scale would yell "arrgh! stay away from me!" because garfield would crush it to death. this is a common joke in the comics.
I love your reasonings of why you enjoy Garfield 2004's potential alongside taking the extra step to keep the game improved and available to try. It's so cool!
this seems like the kind of game i would have played over and over as a kid together with my mom. im bummed i didnt know it existed back then, i definitely would have loved it
If I were to do anything with this... - Make it so that you have a Pizza Tower-esque attack for when Odie bumps into you. Like, you have a 3~6 frame window about to press the kick button (or whatever) to kick Odie away rather than doing a full knockback animation. Best frame of reference of what I'm thinking is a more lenient version of Mario's wall-kick from SM64 - Do a do-over of the BG music. I think what you're doing is a good compromise, but I'd want to rewrite the main BG music to fit the vibes of either "Garfield and Friends" or "The Garfield Show" in maybe a slow-tempo kinda mode.
The instrumental version of "Here Comes Garfield" seems like it would be a good fit for a level. (I haven't actually played the game myself, but am basing this on his comments about the mood the music should evoke.)
It would be cool if one day people are able to manipulate the game's files enough that they can craft custom campaigns. Imagine cleaning other parts of the Garfield universe, or adding different campaigns that don't include Odie destroying everything.
Oh mann! I remember playing this game as a kid! That's such a nostalgic thing. I remember starting rhe game over and over, but I was always stuck at the attic minigame or something
"i would rather have something unique than something that's good" resonates with me a LOT. like, hell, even in terms of "bad" video games or ones that let me down, the biggest ones to me are ones that are, fundamentally, just kinda uninteresting in why they sucked to me. so many "bad games" nowadays are just, bad because of Microtransactions or Excessive Grinding or Being Too Samey With Other Bad Games. like, okay, a game like Minecraft Legends is "bad", yes, but it's bad because it's repetitive as sin and fails to understand what made Minecraft fun. that's literally the same issue Minecraft Earth had, except at least the latter had a decade long baffling history leading into its creation and died because of the worst gamble ever--expecting to get the majority of its playerbase during Spring of 2020 Specifically. Minecraft Legends is nothing. my biggest issue with Minecraft Legends is the same issue with 99% of the mobile game industry. even bad games are becoming mostly uninteresting and it stinks. anyways, please play Bad Rats on April 18th, 2024, at 2PM EST. that's Minecraft Legends' birthday, and i'd rather enjoy a game that is awful, but for actually intriguing reasons.
I feel like if this wasn’t a Garfield game it would have done a lot better. If something like unpacking or a little to the left blows up, a remake of this will do fine
So, I feel that a game lives and dies on its gameplay. Having good gameplay and a atmosphere can go to ignore a lot of graphical problems. The major problems with unique ideas is it can lead to gameplay that's either boring as sin, or fucking infuriating. Being boring is so much worse then being just straight up bad. A game can be unique as all hell, but I prefer fully baked experiences. Addons to gameplay that works tends to be stuff I gravitate towards, or games build of niche genre's. Its why I like survival horror games more then straight up horror games. Managing and conserving resources is a fun gameplay loop when done right.
High level respect for doing this. I wish more people would take games that were bad but neat in concept and then go into the code in order to fix it. Its super cool to see and I think WAY more productive than just forgetting a game ever existed because "THE INTERNET DECREED IT WAS BAD."
Honestly I Feel Like Straight-Up Removing Odie Is A Bit Extreme. Not Only Because He's One Of The Main Garfield Characters But Because Kickstarts The Game's Plot, Doesn't He? I Think Something More Reasonable Would Be To Simply Remove The Knockback. Maybe He Just Runs Up And Wags His Tail At You Until You Walk Away.
What an utterly absorbing video. A friend of mine shares your love of bad games that tried something different. Better to fail at a novel idea than succeed in a flavourless one.
there's something so interesting about playing a game with unique mechanics, you can almost feel what the people creating it were trying to go for and how they tried to iron out issues in the process.
I thought this video was like 3 years old, but when i noticed that this was posted TODAY i was like: So it isn't an abandoned channel! I already adore your channel, +1 subscriber.
This looks like a really interesting game, reminds me a bit of Dead Rising, Luigi's Mansion and as you said Chibi Robo. Would really like to check out your Garfield+ version at some point. It feels like Garfield is a character I've gone from disliking to unironically liking to genuinely loving over the years, it feels like we've all got some Garfield in is & last Christmas I got a Garfield tear away calendar that presents a daily comic strip & small activity each day. Really enjoyed your comments on how it's okay to enjoy games that aren't openly beloved. A few years back I played through Superman 64, ended up really enjoying the ring segments but struggled on the action stages especially once I was playing beyond ProtonJon's let's play. Also played Quest 64 last year which I enjoyed a lot, a speedrunner of the game popped into my chat while I was playing to provide a bunch of handy advice and tips just in general it was really cool experiencing the game on my own and getting to interact with somebody who held it so dearly. You mentioned losing interest in Nintendo over the years, do you have a video that goes into more detail about that? I still really enjoy Nintendo but tend to play their older games, think being really interested in Indie & PC games has kept me distracted from their more recent stuff.
Agreed. I love it when people go out of their way to actually fix a guilty pleasure of theirs that most found bad, than just watch a bunch of rants about it that act like it's beyond saving. ("Totally" "not" projecting the fact that I have a gallery of Problem Solverz fan art on my DeviantArt and Twitter)
I'm always extremely happy to see games that aren't feasibly playable given another chance like this, even deeply mid games like Garfield. Thank you so much for working on this, but I'm curious if there's any chance of a sort-of "change-less" version of Garfield+? From a preservation perspective, the easy packaging of controller support, high-resolution support and all of that is wonderful, but changes to things like sound effects, music and graphics do, imo, break from the intentions of the game, even if they're like... actively better, in many cases. I'm just wondering if this is all something that you would consider, in any case! I hope this doesn't come off as inconsiderate of the work that went towards the changes: I just think having the option to play a... well, playable, but "unchanged" version of the game would be wonderful as far as preserving the game goes. Either way, thank you for this!
oo this was so good, guess i have a new game to play yippe. And man it's so true, if there's one thing i've learned from like countless reviews and experiences ive had; it's that it's really hard to make an actually bad game. it's so subjective and really even trying to go out of your way to make a bad game, will result in at least one person finding joy in it. You sold me completely on the pitch idea, and even if not perfect the way the main mechanic also plays into the platforming/exploration is fucking genius. It's such an excellent and simple idea. and it's this sort of passion that really inspires me too and helps me remember like why i love games. if i wasn't in such a rut, a graphical overhaul would be sooo much fun to do, with how simple the art style and models are. i'm sure someone else will probably do it lol. thank you so much for putting so much time into a game many would just gloss over and forget about.
This used to be one of my favorite childhood games and I speedrunned it a year ago. The vaccuum noises & dialogue really drove me crazy, but I managed to beat the WR somehow back then haha 😂 To see this getting upgraded really brings me joy & makes me want to pick up the game again ❤ Thanks for sharing this!
That last piece of advice is fantastic. There are so many games and shows that I've enjoyed because I experienced them uninfluenced, while the vast majority disagreed.
Much respect to you for this project, I have no experience with this game but I’ve always liked the idea of people cleaning up flawed or bad games to make them into something worth playing.
As an owner of Garfield (2004) (PS2), yeah, I don't think I stuck with it long enough to see the bright sides, particularly with the Lorenzo Music impersonator not doing the best job, from what I remember. Glad you've been able to follow your joy! (...and I also want a Bubsy 3D poster now, a lot of things for us would be different without that game)
I used to play this as a kid. Everything about this game I love and cherish. Even if I wished that all the very much annoying sound effects were still in the game (I love the hell out of them), this is practically a gift from god. Edit: Oh, how thoughtful of leaving the original music in the files as an optional patch!
For any Steam Deck users wanting to play it on the go, I want to note that while the game boots fine, Xidi seems to not work on Steam Deck and the ways to get it to work I tried just... don't, but it seems to register most buttons as different buttons (with some exceptions). So for the configuration, pull up a Gamepad template and make these changes to make it accurate to Windows: Buttons:Map "X button", "Y button" and "A button" to A, X and Y respectively. (B registers correctly.) Set L1 and R1 as Select and Start, and map the Deck's Not-Select and Not-Start (I don't know what they're called and don't really care) as Left Stick Click and the keyboard Escape key respectively. (D-Pad already works fine.) Triggers:Go to both their settings, go down to Analog Output and set "Analogue Output Trigger" to Analogue Off, then map the right and left trigger to Start and Select respectively. Joysticks:Remove the click command from the left stick (moving it around works as intended, I'm not sure if clicking it actually has anything mapped to it on Windows) but set the Right Joystick Behavior as Directional Pad. Map the up and down commmands as the Page Up and Page Down keys from the keyboard (Windows does not have analog sensitivity for moving the vacuum unlike the PS2 version) and set the left and right commands to Right Trigger and Left Trigger, and the click command as Escape Key (since clicking the right stick pauses the game on Windows for some reason). The game should now play with the Deck's inputs as it does for an Xbox 360 controller on Windows, map a trackpad as the mouse for the launcher if you can't be bothered with the touchscreen and you're all set
Garfield ‘04 was the start of a long decline in the garfield series, and it would’ve been better if they just stuck with what worked in the Garfield Adventure series
Ohhh this was a delightful find/gift from the algorithm. One of the points you made about preferring "a unique game to a good game" completely hit the nail on this feeling I've had about video games forever that I've never known how to articulate despite it feeling so simple now (thank you for that); I always thought maybe I was just more drawn to things that were "interesting because they were bad" but bringing up the mechanics and ambition behind those things unlocked some clarity; "interesting because actually interesting" I guess That or I actually am just operating at the baseline "game bad haha funny" LOL either way this was a lot of fun ok thank you have a wonderful day
this is actually the best video on this entire channel. not only did you show me a game i've never even heard of before, but made a whole entire mod addressing issues with said game i've never heard of before
someone's probably already pointed this out but the "scales talking" line at 12:27 I think is supposed to be indicating that it's the fish (named Scales I guess) talking
The game seems very based on the dizzy the egg games, basic platformer where you collect items to their rightful spots to collect further items and explore with a small degree of inventory management. The dizzy games have much more of a whimsical worldbuilding focus as its main hook over garfields hilarious quips however.
god I had this game when I was younger and I for some reason it terrified me, there was just something about the up/downstairs transitions that really freaked me out with how the game got so quiet and you just had to watch garfield slowly go up and down the stairs. That and because the stairs usually meant I'd have to deal with odie suddenly running in out of nowhere. it's really silly to think back on lol
Hi, i'm a french adult and this game was one of the i've never finished but always regarded as an old masterpiece in my mind, i will never thank you enough to give me the chance to play it in the best condition
Just played a bit of it, and yeah I agree this game is pretty fun. I will say though, I don't like how you just straight up took out the OG music without giving us the option to choose whether we wanted to keep it. I get that you think it's bad, but having at least SOME of the dev's original vision left intact with a cleaned up version of this game would've been good. Either way though, good job! This is a pretty enjoyable game.
More options and toggles for what the player wants in their current gameplay session would be nice, like switching the music or Garfield's chatter pattern, maybe an update could do with these.
I had this game on PS2 and as harsh as this sounds - it's the game that taught me video games can be bad lmao. Great video though, as I've grown older I've taken more pleasure in the jank and weird - it's *always* wonderful seeing someone put positivity like this in a scene that's so largely dominated by common consensus and negativity. As much as I didn't like this game when I played it I really respect your take here, I really like this video, and I think you putting in all that effort to fixing this game on PC is absolutely fantastic. Well done, Clue!
I think the fact that you decided to rebuild the game shows your dedication to the obscure and (somewhat) unloved games of times past and I think your passion is very sweet! You did a fantastic job, Clue!
