Pandemonium! is one of the last platforming games of its like. When it was released the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation 1 (PS1), the world was experiencing the first of many 3D games that would soon supplant 2D gaming as the king of video game formats. Back then, Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and DOOM were making the rounds due to their respective platforms being able to produce polygon graphics, giving gamers their first taste of three-dimensional games.
Unfortunately, the game wasn't able to keep up with the changing of the guard and was overshadowed eventually by newer, more 3D-focused games.
Pandemonium! Details: History, Plot, and Gameplay
Pandemonium! is a platforming game developed by ToysForBobn and was published by Crystal Dynamics for the Sega Saturn, PS1, and Microsoft Windows, per the game's Fandom page. It follows the story of Fargus the Jester and Nikki the Acrobat in their quest to restore the town they live in after Nikki, who was a sorceress, unwittingly casts a spell to destroy it.
The game is known as Magical Hoppers in Japan, interestingly.
As Pandemonium!'s is a platforming game, its gameplay mechanics are similar to games in the genre: players have to navigate either Fargus or Nikki to the other end of the screen without exhausting their limited number of lives. They can have the character they control jump on enemies to defeat them and pickup power-ups that provide players with temporary buffs a la Mario.
The game also features minigames that grant the player unique powers, such as fireball, freeze ray, and shrink ray that damage, freeze, and shrink an enemy, respectively. Except for fireball, all powers only affect an enemy for a limited time. However, these minigames only offer players three tries to complete them.
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Players can also collect coins that can replenish a life when enough of them are collected.
Finally, the player can shapeshift Nikki or Fargus into various animals, real and mythical, at some point in a level. These include a frog that jumps extremely high, a rhinoceros that kills enemies by charging at them, a turtle that is invulnerable when hidden in its shell, and a dragon that can breathe fire and fly.
The game is a 2.5D game wherein the levels twist and curve around the game's linear path, which is the compromise developers made to get the best of 2D and 3D game formats.
Pandemonium! Reception and Availability in the Modern World
Pandemonium! lost its pull on the masses fairly quickly, per Hardcore Gaming. The transitional 2.5D gameplay was rarely used to its full potential, and the game was outclassed by better 2.5D games like Namco's Klonoa. The problem with Pandemonium! was that it wanted to appeal to the older generation when the game had the potential to be a kid-friendly one.
The game did receive a sequel in the form of Pandemonium! 2, which received a far better reception with average to good reviews from GameSpot and other gaming publications.
Pandemonium! became available in today's world through CD Projekt Red's Good Old Games digital video game selling platform and on Steam. However, the game has acquired mixed reviews due to its crashing upon launch and/or its dated gameplay, however, not all is lost; other players, who seemed to have played the game in the '90s, have enjoyed the game.
The game could be making a comeback soon through the efforts of Ubisoft Artist and Visual Developer Giacomo Boni, who seems to be working on modernized illustrations for the game. However, this is only speculation as Boni never confirmed that a remake is in the works.
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