COMPLETE: Family Dog
Dec. 16th, 2018 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoIf you are part of Clan Sugardoom, you just saw the title of this post and/or new icon and went, "Oh, God."
OKAY SO.
Family Dog was some short-lived cartoon series that bombed horribly despite having some seriously impressive names attached.
Family Dog was a licensed SNES game-of-the-show developed by Absolute Entertainment and published by Malibu Games, the former of which was kind of another factory for bombs by respected creators who should know better. (Just look at all these great games and remember that this is David Crane's company. And, oh, no, there's Toys again.)
I've only ever seen one episode of the show. It was... okay, I think. The game, meanwhile, is some spectacular kusoge.
Here's a longplay, and yes, the entire game is about 15 minutes long if you know what you're doing, know the trick to get past the outdoor pound area, and don't die or redo areas due to missed jumps. Everything about this game screams low-quality godawful shovelware, but if you look closer, it's actually surprisingly high-quality godawful shovelware.
You are the family dog. You walk and run and jump and bark at things and the controls are about as bad as you would expect. There are like three or four kinds of horizontal and vertical jumping and none of them make it any easier to land on things. You can dig when there are buried items, a mechanic that mostly exists to frustrate you when you hit a patch of "something is buried here, better stop and very slowly inch and sniff along the ground to indicate this" directly under a falling hazard you were trying to dodge.
Barking is your main and only weapon, with most enemies in the game taking 2-4 barks (depending on enemy) to dispatch. Your barks are finite. You can replenish stock with collectible +5 bark powerups, though those are somewhat rare. Enemies usually tend to add either +1 health or +5 barks upon being defeated. The mechanics are somewhat unclear, but my experience is that it more or less works like the need-based system of modern Metroid games, where enemies tend to drop health if you're hurt or barks otherwise. Given the comparative dearth of collectible barks, this is your primary means of replenishing your stock.
This means that it takes barks to make barks. If you're relatively healthy and have a decent reserve of barks already, then you'll never worry about barks ever again; you can afford to shout down everything that moves, especially since you'll almost always turn a profit when you do. However, if you are sick/injured and bark-poor, you will find yourself unable to afford your sole means of survival, with little recourse but to scrimp along until you either get lucky with a collectible or die. I think this game might actually be a commentary about capitalism.
There are three stages. In the first, you mostly wander around your... unusual home. (Don't you just hate it when you're busy dusting all the possessed flying books on the top shelf which is about three miles above the ground, and suddenly you remember that you left all twenty of your ovens on?) In the second act, your family has had enough of your shit and takes you to the pound. Then you escape, and the final act involves you Homeward Bound-ing through a probably haunted-forest to be happily reunited with your loving family. (!!?!?)
All in all, this is a very bad licensed SNES game in an ocean of very bad licensed SNES games.
But.
Young me never knew this. Young me was somehow convinced this game was fantastic, and rented it just about every single time we went to that particular rental store. I never was able to beat it, because actually getting past the pound requires doing a certain thing (you can see it in the longplay video, but I won't spoil it just in case) that is not clear. Said thing happens to hit right in the middle of an almost maze-like outdoor area that expands in all directions and has several open windows leading to other side areas. Therefore, not noticing what the actual solution was, I always got stuck in this part and assumed it was because I had gotten lost. Maybe one of those windows led to the exit, but I just missed it because I'm too high or too low or something as I try to sweep the area. Maybe if I rent the game again and try to map out that whole area really carefully next time....
(Fun fact: One of the times I tried to rent this game, the guy messed up and gave me Cool World instead. Between how awful that game is and how disappointed I was, that was the experience that literally taught young me the previously-unlearned lesson that there is an actual such thing as bad games. Not just ones I'm bad at or can't figure out, but ones where the failure to get anywhere is the game's fault. I never made that connection before Cool World. ... I still loved Family Dog even after having had my eyes opened, though.)
These days, Family Dog is a shorthand reference for a phenomenon that my clanmates and I often experience: that one game you used to play growing up that's actually garbage, but it's your garbage, and you will therefore hold a soft spot for it forevermore. Each of us has our own Family Dog. This has become such a well-understood expression that we actually even call them that. (Well, the others say "X is my Family Dog," anyway. My Family Dog is Family Dog.)
This screenshot of Family Dog, with the titular dog's bright happy joyous expression in contrast to the atrocious game he's in, is even a Telegram sticker we use in clan when we want to visually convey this feeling. It comes up a lot more often than you might expect. And now it's a Dreamwidth icon, too. Expect that (along with the Werewolf: The Last Warrior "DON'T KNOCK" one) to come up every time I need to defend some ancient gaming junk food.
This COMPLETE entry isn't an "I have finally beaten this game" story like Toys, because after I saw that longplay and finally discovered how you're meant to escape the pound, I've actually beaten it before. Nor is this an "I have put this lingering burden to rest" story because, at about 15-45 minutes long depending on skill and as an old nostalgic comfort food of mine, I'll probably keep it in reserve to play again as whim and mood dictate. Still, it was good to get this one out in the era of me gameblogging about the stuff I beat, mostly so I could write all these thoughts down. It was good to refresh my memory (this game is actually quite a bit more difficult than I remember--I think I must have been using savestates last time) and to share the experience with Sara. And it was good to just... you know... play Family Dog again. It's the shitty game that defines me in clan, so I may as well embrace it.
OKAY SO.
Family Dog was some short-lived cartoon series that bombed horribly despite having some seriously impressive names attached.
Family Dog was a licensed SNES game-of-the-show developed by Absolute Entertainment and published by Malibu Games, the former of which was kind of another factory for bombs by respected creators who should know better. (Just look at all these great games and remember that this is David Crane's company. And, oh, no, there's Toys again.)
I've only ever seen one episode of the show. It was... okay, I think. The game, meanwhile, is some spectacular kusoge.
Here's a longplay, and yes, the entire game is about 15 minutes long if you know what you're doing, know the trick to get past the outdoor pound area, and don't die or redo areas due to missed jumps. Everything about this game screams low-quality godawful shovelware, but if you look closer, it's actually surprisingly high-quality godawful shovelware.
You are the family dog. You walk and run and jump and bark at things and the controls are about as bad as you would expect. There are like three or four kinds of horizontal and vertical jumping and none of them make it any easier to land on things. You can dig when there are buried items, a mechanic that mostly exists to frustrate you when you hit a patch of "something is buried here, better stop and very slowly inch and sniff along the ground to indicate this" directly under a falling hazard you were trying to dodge.
Barking is your main and only weapon, with most enemies in the game taking 2-4 barks (depending on enemy) to dispatch. Your barks are finite. You can replenish stock with collectible +5 bark powerups, though those are somewhat rare. Enemies usually tend to add either +1 health or +5 barks upon being defeated. The mechanics are somewhat unclear, but my experience is that it more or less works like the need-based system of modern Metroid games, where enemies tend to drop health if you're hurt or barks otherwise. Given the comparative dearth of collectible barks, this is your primary means of replenishing your stock.
This means that it takes barks to make barks. If you're relatively healthy and have a decent reserve of barks already, then you'll never worry about barks ever again; you can afford to shout down everything that moves, especially since you'll almost always turn a profit when you do. However, if you are sick/injured and bark-poor, you will find yourself unable to afford your sole means of survival, with little recourse but to scrimp along until you either get lucky with a collectible or die. I think this game might actually be a commentary about capitalism.
There are three stages. In the first, you mostly wander around your... unusual home. (Don't you just hate it when you're busy dusting all the possessed flying books on the top shelf which is about three miles above the ground, and suddenly you remember that you left all twenty of your ovens on?) In the second act, your family has had enough of your shit and takes you to the pound. Then you escape, and the final act involves you Homeward Bound-ing through a probably haunted-forest to be happily reunited with your loving family. (!!?!?)
All in all, this is a very bad licensed SNES game in an ocean of very bad licensed SNES games.
But.
Young me never knew this. Young me was somehow convinced this game was fantastic, and rented it just about every single time we went to that particular rental store. I never was able to beat it, because actually getting past the pound requires doing a certain thing (you can see it in the longplay video, but I won't spoil it just in case) that is not clear. Said thing happens to hit right in the middle of an almost maze-like outdoor area that expands in all directions and has several open windows leading to other side areas. Therefore, not noticing what the actual solution was, I always got stuck in this part and assumed it was because I had gotten lost. Maybe one of those windows led to the exit, but I just missed it because I'm too high or too low or something as I try to sweep the area. Maybe if I rent the game again and try to map out that whole area really carefully next time....
(Fun fact: One of the times I tried to rent this game, the guy messed up and gave me Cool World instead. Between how awful that game is and how disappointed I was, that was the experience that literally taught young me the previously-unlearned lesson that there is an actual such thing as bad games. Not just ones I'm bad at or can't figure out, but ones where the failure to get anywhere is the game's fault. I never made that connection before Cool World. ... I still loved Family Dog even after having had my eyes opened, though.)
These days, Family Dog is a shorthand reference for a phenomenon that my clanmates and I often experience: that one game you used to play growing up that's actually garbage, but it's your garbage, and you will therefore hold a soft spot for it forevermore. Each of us has our own Family Dog. This has become such a well-understood expression that we actually even call them that. (Well, the others say "X is my Family Dog," anyway. My Family Dog is Family Dog.)
This screenshot of Family Dog, with the titular dog's bright happy joyous expression in contrast to the atrocious game he's in, is even a Telegram sticker we use in clan when we want to visually convey this feeling. It comes up a lot more often than you might expect. And now it's a Dreamwidth icon, too. Expect that (along with the Werewolf: The Last Warrior "DON'T KNOCK" one) to come up every time I need to defend some ancient gaming junk food.
This COMPLETE entry isn't an "I have finally beaten this game" story like Toys, because after I saw that longplay and finally discovered how you're meant to escape the pound, I've actually beaten it before. Nor is this an "I have put this lingering burden to rest" story because, at about 15-45 minutes long depending on skill and as an old nostalgic comfort food of mine, I'll probably keep it in reserve to play again as whim and mood dictate. Still, it was good to get this one out in the era of me gameblogging about the stuff I beat, mostly so I could write all these thoughts down. It was good to refresh my memory (this game is actually quite a bit more difficult than I remember--I think I must have been using savestates last time) and to share the experience with Sara. And it was good to just... you know... play Family Dog again. It's the shitty game that defines me in clan, so I may as well embrace it.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 09:53 am (UTC)1) For Celine/Sara: What is Clan Sugardoom?
2) For everyone else: What's your Family Dog?
In my case, I had to think about this for a while. The closest I can think of is Cybernoid, an NES-era platformer/shmup combo where you flew this spacecraft that looks like it was modeled on Snoopy's head around and try to figure out how to defeat various enemies...as well as what your overall objective is.
I have yet to get more than 8 screens into it. :[
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:35 pm (UTC)Hybridization and shapeshifting make pinning down species complicated.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:38 pm (UTC)Just. Not in the right places.
EDIT: Also, Cybernoid was one of the works done by one of my favorite non-Japanese composers, Jeroen Tel. Look up the Robocop 3 NES soundtrack sometime, jam out.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 12:40 pm (UTC)Holy shit.
It's true, but I'm not sure you should say it.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-20 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 09:24 pm (UTC)Mostly I just ended up playing Super Mario World, and that's certainly no Family Dog.
But I do have a few bad (or at least not great) games I only got to play part of, that I remember kindly. Coming up with examples is a struggle, given my bad memory, but here's a couple:
Quest 64
Space Station Silicon Valley wasn't actually bad. Though it is... dated. I'd definitely replay it. ...I never beat it. Those damn hippos.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 10:25 pm (UTC)Basically young me was big into the console wars and had decided that Nintendo is a dumb kiddie baby company for dumb kiddie babies, whereas the PSX is the cool new system of the future. The PSX had CDs and the N64 was still stuck with carts LOLOLOL. And as the absolute perfect metaphor that symbolized this entire mindset, PSX had cool edgy RPGs like FF7 where people die and swear, and N64 had Quest 64 which I never played but kind of looks like Mystic Quest but like 64? Feh!
These days, I love Nintendo, I love Mystic Quest, and I'm honestly curious about Quest 64 and really should give it a try one of these days.
Space Station Silicon Valley, meanwhile, was just straight up fun and good (I wouldn't even put that in the "probably bad games you like anyway" pile), it just kind of defeated me when I got stuck on some puzzle later on that I don't remember now. I should revisit that someday too.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 10:30 pm (UTC)I wanted a Playstation, and my grandpa got me an N64 because you know, the whole "well it's cheaper and all game systems are basically the same, right?" kind of ignorance.
And I was so grumpy at first.
But it probably saved me from being a console purist in the end. Because it was super fun!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-20 05:45 am (UTC)And then Square jumped ship to Sony and I followed them. After an "UltraSephiroth" phase THAT WE DO NOT DISCUSS EVER THANK YOU, I was ChocoboKick and I had soured on Nintendo from then until.. I grew up, basically.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-20 06:37 am (UTC)I mean I was shipping him, but you'd think I'd have been ripe for that sort of "oh my god Sephiroth is the COOLEST! He could totally beat Goku! I want to wear a coat like his and have a sword twice my height!"
I mean, here I was a little baby goth who thought that sort of thing was cool, and loved swords, and really, all the warning signs...
But actual Sephiroth shows up and I'm over with the fan-girls calling him "Seph-chan" and woobifying him instead. :p
no subject
Date: 2018-12-20 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-20 08:47 pm (UTC)The Vincent phase missed me too.
I think because he registered as a vampire to me, and I was in the middle of a "eurgh vampires" phase at the time?
All my phases were pretty generic, not attached to specific characters, from what I can remember.
I mean, they were still exactly as "cringey". :p
Nanaki is no phase. Nanaki is a precious kid just trying his best.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-20 02:28 am (UTC)