Review by Valter Prette
The story
In this game you are Carol, an elf working for Santa Claus, who must recover the gifts stolen from the Evil Snowman.
You delve deeper into 8 different levels of ice caves, carefully avoiding the Ghost of Christmas Presents and the Snowman who persecute you!
The capture by the ghost will result in the loss of all the gifts previously collected, while the Snowman will take one of your 3 lives.
During your travels in the cave, a few snowballs if collected, will help you to momentarily disorient the enemies.
The gameplay
Carol is essentially a maze game with an unusual freedom of action inspired by the level design of Pengo.
The movement of the main character is fluid and the objectives of the screen easy to interpret.
The pick up gifts is frustrating in some circumstances because you cannot just touch the edge of the package but you almost get over it to collect the item, and this increases the risk in times of frantic escape from 'Evil Snowman.
The Snowman is the real enemy that you have to escape and honestly I found its speed and endurance sometime excessive, making the game in general quite difficult.
The technical point of view
Surely Carol shows dedication and passion typical of a connoisseur of classic games.
The mix of traditional and original dynamics is enhanced by an alluring sound and animations that are meant to be fun.
The graphics are well done but the choice of colors and patterns of ice cubes, being varied, is sometimes confusing and does not make it immediately obvious to your eyes where the gift packages are while you're on the run from enemies!
The large number of levels will ensure you hours of play.
From the point of view of collectors, we may add:
- The box is solid and well made, adopting the model gatefold reintroduced by Elektronite and downright luxurious by the standards of homebrew. Some doubts about color printing that is just not very brilliant
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the manual, in full color, it is very well made, but it was printed in too large format and can not fit into the appropriate slot on the cover of the box!
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the overlays are also slightly faded, but very good for the choice of material
- cartridge with sticker is wonderful
Final comment
A must have hit for all hombrew collectors! |
