Squirrel King is a pirated game which resembles Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers for the NES, made by Gamtec for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis at an unknown date.
Overview
Gameplay
The gameplay mirrors that of Chip 'n Dale for the NES, and even has the titular characters from that game. Similar to that game, there is a two-player mode where the characters play cooperatively. In this game, the player can throw boxes, hide in them and throw fireballs, the latter of which couldn't be done in Chip 'n Dale. The player starts off with 5 hearts for health, and they can collect medkits which restore one heart and acorns which restore health completely. They also have a limited amount of gloves which throw a fireball at the enemies. They start with three of these and extra ones can be collected by finding more gloves inside boxes. The player starts with 4 lives and 5 continues. 100 diamonds are required to get an extra life in single player, while only 50 are needed in cooperative play. The graphics are similar to those of Chip 'n Dale, but none of the graphics are ripped directly from that game. However, several of the enemies are clearly based off those from the sequel, with some ersatz "Disney flavour" added (i.e., a snake in a box which originally wasn't wearing a watch on its neck in Chip 'n Dale 2). The music is mostly original, aside from Act 2's music which is a cover of the Donkey Kong theme.
The game is split into 7 acts in total, of which only the first act is based loosely off the original Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. Unlike that game, no acts can be skipped and there's no map screen to go through between them. All 7 acts have a boss at the end. Most are unnamed, although the final boss is identified in the final act as Barnett, who is a hat-wearing elephant which jumps around on a lift. Like Chip 'n Dale, all of the bosses can be defeated by throwing randomly appearing objects at them, although in this game they also take damage from fireballs. All of the bosses take 8 hits to defeat, aside from Barnett who takes 12 hits. The ending shows a "cast of characters" for all of the enemies in the game, excluding the bosses, followed by a credits sequence.
Super Mario World
Super Mario World - Sega Genesis Megadrive Game
This game was later hacked to make Super Mario World, also known as Super Mario Bros. (the game has both title screens). Chip and Dale were replaced with the Mario Bros. - although players can't choose who to play as in this game - and the first two acts are replaced with worlds from the Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, with Bowser serving as the boss. The level graphics are taken from the SNES Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros., but the Mario, Luigi, and enemy sprites are completely original.
Though the back of the game's box shows it, the 3rd sunset stage for some reason is skipped and not playable in this version. The level title cards were also removed from this game, yet the credits were left intact. Two new songs were also added: a rendition of "Cancan" (heard in the main menu) and the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme (heard throughout all "new" levels, including the castle stages).
Everything else remains the same as Squirrel King, including the gameplay - this means elements such as the pipes, blocks & "?" blocks in the "Mario" stages do not function at all, and you cannot jump on enemies.
After the first two acts, the game immediately reverts back to its original state; the enemies from Squirrel King are back in their original form, and the rest of the remaining levels and bosses revert back to its original Squirrel King form, graphics, music and all; the only other thing that continues to remain changed is the sprite of Mario/Luigi. Some levels, however, appear to be skipped in this game.
Trivia
Gamtec logo.
- Despite the name, Chip and Dale are actually chipmunks.
- The names for the enemies in the ending are incorrect, with the first two being named Chip and Dale. This is most noticeable with the candle enemy, which according to the ending is called Dick and another enemy being called Candle.
- In the credits, one person is listed as Jazz Dark while the rest of the names are in Chinese.
- At the end of the credits, the Gamtec logo can be seen.
- Several of the songs used in this game are from other sources, albeit rewritten for Gamtec's sound driver. The music for the "Secret Nucleon Dump" and "Pay a Visit to Grotto" stages is the Donkey Kong Country theme, while the music for the "Graveyard Encounter" stage is "Be Prepared" from The Lion King.
- This game, in it's Super Mario World form, was played in SpaceHamster's Bootleg Mario Games video, though Squirrel King was mentioned.
- The continue screen depicts Chip and Dale tied up over a fire; continuing puts the fire out. Amusingly, Squirrel King implores the player to "CONTIUNE". This typo was fixed in the Super Mario World version (Which replaced the chipmunks with Mario and Luigi).
Gallery
