Schbibin Man

~ SCHBIBIN MAN ~

NCS/Masaya

HuCard

1989

Most people are going to toss Schbibin aside immediately because its controls are quite poor--floaty when you're in the air, slippery when you're on the ground, and slow to respond wherever the hell you are. Repetition is also a major issue. You can take various "paths" to the end, playing only a few stages or a whole bunch in the process, but every damn area is either a park, a city, or a factory, with the only variations coming in the forms of occasional nighttime treks. Whether you're outside or indoors, you'll come across the same sorts of platforms, the same vats of lava below said platforms, the same spiked balls that try to knock you into said vats, and the same small enemies who just roll or bumble around.

And every boss save for the last one is either a blockheaded robot or a three-headed dragon.

Of course, it wouldn't truly be a bad game unless I had a few nice things to say about it. Goblin, known mainly for their fine Moto Roader work, gave us some really nice music here as well. Some of the platforming sequences definitely represent a bit of design ingenuity, and it does take a little skill and memorization to get through the trickier strips unscathed.

Playing long enough to experience all the different levels without finding the experience deplorable is possible because even though the game engine feels pretty broken at times, it isn't completely smashed to hell like, say, Genpei Toumaden's. And, despite the repetition, it can be fun to explore all those stages because your character acquires extremely helpful items when you reach various points on the map.

Despite those many, uh, "positives," the gameplay and repetitiveness will cause most folks to loathe the title. Personally, I had some fun conquering all the stages, powering up my character, and listening to the tunes.