Back in the 90's when Sonic & Mario were ruling the roost. The Amiga waited for some platforming icon that it could call its own.
Zool was to become it. Running, jumping and collecting sweets around lavishly designed levels, Zool was everything a world class platformer should be. Whilst it lacks the polish of the Sonic and Mario games, it more than makes up for it with varied graphics, fast gameplay and style. Controls are a little on the loose side and you may find it difficult to achieve precision jumping at first.
Back in the 90's when Sonic & Mario were ruling the roost. The Amiga waited for some platforming icon that it could call its own.
Zool was to become it. Running, jumping and collecting sweets around lavishly designed levels, Zool was everything a world class platformer should be. Whilst it lacks the polish of the Sonic and Mario games, it more than makes up for it with varied graphics, fast gameplay and style. Controls are a little on the loose side and you may find it difficult to achieve precision jumping at first. However after a little practice you'll get the hang of it.
The music is great and really suits the fast paced action of the game. Although some of the tracks may
start to annoy after prolonged play. Whilst this is one of the Amiga's better platformers, there are still a few areas where it fails to live up to the Sonics and Mario's.
As previously mentioned the controls are not quite as responsive and you might like, meaning that missed jumps and the occasional unnecessary death will occur. Its not unplayable, but those used to the pixel perfect controls of Mario, may be a little disappointed. Also the blatant Chupa Chups advertising throughout the first 4 levels is a little annoying. Whilst these days we are getting more and more used to sponsorship and advertising in our games, back when this was released it was very blatant and out of place. Especially considering the health aspects of pushing sweets on kids.
The second release of this was the AGA version, which had improved graphics and also a plot. Although this made very little difference to the game, it was at least interesting to see how Gremlin thought of the game as a narrative. The games was ported to many systems including the Pc, Atart ST, Mega Drive, and even the ill fated Atari Jaguar. Most of these ports were fairly faithful to the Amiga version.
However if you want to play this game at its best, I would suggest a joypad, as joysticks don't quite cut it in Zool.
Overall a great game that will keep you entertained for a good while, provided you are not expecting the brilliance of Sonic or Mario then you will really enjoy this accomplished little platformer, that made a big impact on the Amiga.
