Hi there!

 

So I had already canceled the series of System 3 games articles. Well, some recent gaming sessions made me rethink this and cancel the cancellation. Or in other words I feel like writing articles for Flimbo's Quest and Turbo Charge, so the System 3 series is living again!

 

Violating Chronolaws, this would actually come before Last Ninja 3:

 

Flimbo's Quest (1990):

 

 

Programming: Laurens Van Der Donk, Patrick Witteman, Dave Hogendorf

Graphics: Arthur Van Jole, Jacco Van T Riet

Musicians: Reyn Ouwehand, Johannes Bjerregaard

 

Ratings:

Zzap! Rating: 80%

Lemon64 Rating: 7.8

 

History:

As you can tell from all the dutch names in the credits, this game wasn't made by the usual System 3 UK crowd. In fact I think somewhere inbetween LN 2 and LN3 the company lost most of their original staff, with people like Hugh Riley and John Twiddy starting their own company "Vivid Image" for example.

 

After that major brain drain System 3 hired two superstar dutch teams, "Boys Without Brains" (=> Hawkeye) and "Cyberdyne Systems" (=> Armalyte), which amongst others worked on LN3 and Flimbo's Quest then.

 

Overview:

Now everyone who ever played Hawkeye will immediately notice that Flimbo is essentially using the very same (yet still jaw-dropping) parallax side-scrolling graphics engine. Also the gameplay is virtually identical, the major change is an extra thick layer of cutesy that was poured over it: Instead of a Cyborg Warrior equipped with Lasers and a Rocket Launcher, Flimbo is a little propeller-cap boy throwing stones

 

With an almost usual story (Flimbo rescuing his beloved Pearly from a mad scientist) you're shooting (read: stone throwing) and jumping your way through 8 beautiful fantasy levels. Your mission is collecting 3-6 letters of a message that you have to deliver to a shop keeper in each level. Those letters are carried by some specific creatures. When the shop keeper tells you to look for a snail next for example, you have to search the level left through right until you find a glowing snail. Shoot it and it will drop a letter. Return that and repeat until the level is done. Repeat for all other levels as well.

 

As you may have guessed already, the shop has another function, it will sell you some upgrades like invulnerability potions. It will also sell you time, which brings us to one big flaw of the game: It has an overall time limit during which you have to complete all levels! I find this is a big no-no for that kind of game and really a design sin.

 

Fun in 2007:

Well, I was never a big fan of Flimbo in the first place. Basically it's a straightforward and repetitive arcadish jump'n'shoot, that's mainly living from its good graphics and music - Which unfortunately fail to meet my personal taste in most levels. I still prefer Hawkeye over Flimbo, not only because the later always felt like a rehashed experience, but also because I have problems to identify myself with a little kid when playing a video game

 

It starts very easy, so back in the day I always thought it was aimed towards little children. If you manage to sit through the slow beginning, up to the 4th-5th level it gets really challenging though and the last two levels are really tough, but rewarding. I also like the graphics more in the later levels. For example the 7th (where the above screenshot is coming from) has a cool spooky theme.

 

Not really a favourite, but good clean fun for a couple of hours.

 

Greetings,

Manuel