World 7, Sun Canyon, has a Wild West setting, with mesas and buttes in the background, platforms made of sun-dried caked mud decorated by cacti. The world select screen also shows wagon wheels and cattle skulls around, which would’ve been neat to have here too. Not only are the towers a step up in difficulty and complexity than the ones in World 6, Tektricity, but Sun Canyon’s set is the first one to require flapping and drop swinging. The former has to be figured out on one’s own (or watching the computer players engage in flapping), while the latter has signs instructing you to drop-swing where they’re necessary.
The character I’ve chosen this time is T’Basco, a red longhorn bull with a loud voice. This game predates Red Bull’s popularity. Rather, I think the design origin comes from the mascot of the Chicago Bulls NBA team. His grappling hook is a lasso with a nose ring at the end.
00:25 - Tower 1 - Caveat Emptor
if you’re wondering about me getting ahead in the conditional teleporters despite the arrow pointing down, there is a brief grace period where it will still take you further, which I took full advantage of. The name of this tower is the Latin phrase for “buyer beware,” meaning that the seller takes no responsibility for the buyer obtaining a low-quality or defective product.
04:08 - Tower 2 - Isle of Povros
The AI can navigate small, sparsely-spaced platforms way better than I can, but they make up for it by stumbling on goo platforms, which I needed to get the edge in this tower, and it wound up a photo finish. This may be an incorrect spelling of “Isles of Poros,” a pair of islands on the Greek Archipelago.
07:32 - Tower 3 - Madagascar
This tower begins the overall motif of Sun Canyon: long, meandering continuous platforms with a lot of hazards on them, much like Tektricity, but with fewer gaps and only one layer. It sounds simpler, but it means there are fewer ways to get ahead, and the obstacles are harder to avoid. For the record, this predates the Madagascar films (let alone the Penguins of Madagascar). Both, of course, are named after the island country off the southeastern coast of Africa.
10:44 - Tower 4 - Bash-tastic ! ! !
As you can figure from its name, there are a lot of hammers here. However, this tower is the first one in the game where flapping is required. By jumping and holding down the A button, you can hover and slow your descent. Since flapping segments require upward grappling afterwards, and you use the control stick to move and aim your grappling, you need to gain enough momentum to travel under your next platform to move the control stick up and grapple it.
14:16 - Tower 5 - Oasis
This tower is characterized by horizontal portions with many varying platforms, much like some of Tektricity’s towers. However, this one has more goo platforms, hammers, and enemies (namely the spike ones), and encourages you to stay airborne for longer. So long that sometimes, you can see Evan about to pick me up!
18:37 - Tower 6 - Der Klangischer (Armored)
This one is very annoying because of the unsynchronized way the platforms move towards the beginning. You’ll see that I was stuck there for a while on the second and third laps, as were the computer players. But that makes it very tough to keep up with them because if you miss even one chance to grapple upwards, even if it was because you were attacked, they can pull half a lap or more ahead.
22:16 - Tower 7 - The Propellor Stack
This is one of the most annoying towers in the game because the computer players have such an advantage here. The middle area, with the propeller-shaped platforms, don’t mesh well with this game’s camera system or aiming system. The AI, however, doesn’t have to worry about that. The result is nearly unbeatable opposition. The only way I could come out on top is to get an Invincible item and grapple up through the armored platforms.
24:56 - Tower 8 - Falling Staircase
This is, I think, the only tower in the game with an auto-roll segment as a hindrance rather than a breather, as there are two of them that travel in the opposite direction of where you want to go, with platforms above them to get across. The first one has normal platforms; the second has icy platforms.
28:10 - Tower 9 - Bohampscious
The ending part of this tower was a portion I always liked when I was younger, the part with the irregularly shaped armored platforms with an exposed spot where the platforms are closest together. I don’t know why. The tower’s name may be a portmanteau of “Bohannon” (like the musician Hamilton Bohannon) or "Bo Hampton" (comic book artist), “scrumptious,” and “conscious.”
31:35 - Final - Porous Torso
Among the finales, this one felt oddly short, but maybe it’s because I somehow managed to get to the platforms when they lined up best, whereas otherwise, there would be a lot of waiting.
With this one cleared, we’ll move on next to World 8, Patchwork.
3 июл 2024
