Captain Planet and the Planeteers
System: NES
Release Date: September 1991
Developer: Chris Gray Enterprises
Publisher: Mindscape
Genre: Action
Find a way to stop all the pollution with Captain Planet and the Planeteers! Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! GO PLANET! By your powers combined… I am Captain Planet! I don’t know if you knew this, but Captain Planet is our hero and he’s going to take pollution down to zero. You’re going to have to help by going through 10 stages of some awful gameplay. Do you have the fortitude to make it through it all?
The Earth spirit, Gaia, is fearful because of the eco-villains and their plots to destroy the planet in the chase of the almighty dollar. The five Planeteers have been given rings with the power of the elements… and heart. Together they work with each other to take down the bad guys in two types of stages. There’s a side scrolling shoot ‘em up stage to start off each level, then if you can get past that, you control Captain Planet. The shoot ‘em up stages are terrible. They have simple destroy this thing or save that animal objectives. Saving elephants will annoy you as much as it did me.
The A Button shoots whichever element you have equipped. You cycle through them by pressing the Start Button, but don’t overshoot what you want or you’ll be dead. If you touch something that you think might just be graphic scenery, you’ll be wrong, and dead. Enemies are relentless and because you only get one bullet on screen at a time, if you miss, you’ll be dead. Dying respawns you at the latest checkpoint you reached and the makeup of the enemies may change. I hated when the enemy choppers would just teleport to the plane I was on. I learned to trust in the wind power to act as a shield. Just don’t use too much or your power level will drain and you’ll have no choice except to die.
If you somehow make it to the end of the level, you go to the villain’s lair as Captain Planet. Here you fly around looking for your path to whichever baddie Gaia sicks you on. Be careful not to touch anything in the environment, because if you do, you’re dead. Switching into a blob of water will get you through sludge and other junk. Wind will get you through barriers. Rock and fire will break stuff. And as far as I can tell, heart was used in one boss battle. Using your powers will drain your power level and if it falls to zero, you’re dead.
Dying as Captain Planet revives you immediately with a full power level. This is necessary if you can’t find a powerup in a timely manner. Your timing is important, too, because you press the B Button to somersault into a power, but it takes longer to go into effect than you think, so it’ll be a cause of death too often. Luckily there are infinite continues and extra lives (up to 4) are prevalent, but it’s not enough. If you can brute force your way past a level, you get a password, which you can then come back to later after you forget how bad this game sucks.
Graphics: 1.5
The best part of the game, but still nothing special. The cut scene drawings are neat.
Sound: 1.0
The music is repetitive and while not horrible, it gets annoying along with the sound effects.
Gameplay: 0.5
The controls are floaty and awful. The power level system will be your demise when you’re drained.
Difficulty: 0.5
Poorly balanced in every way. Sure, continue as much as you want, but everything is going to kill you anyway.
Fun Factor: 0.0
I would seriously question the honesty of anyone who says this is an enjoyable game. It’s incredibly frustrating and unfair.
Overall Rating: 0.7
Captain Planet and the Planeteers earns a D-. This game is awful and you should stay far away. Let Captain Pollution win. Just like reality.