Games You Should’ve Played (But Probably Didn’t): Mischief Makers
In a day and age where it feels like the world of Japanese video-gamery is becoming more and more marginalized, with the only genre’s from across the sea still at their best being bullet-hell shooters, discomforting hentai adventures, and Tekken, I feel the necessity from time to time to think back on the days when Japanese video games weren’t just the gold standard, but the gold standard in crazy. Enter Mischief Makers, a Nintendo 64 game released by Treasure in 1997. Called Go Go! Trouble Makers in Japan (in my opinion a far superior name), MM was the flag-bearer for insanity. You played a robot maid, Marina, who’s owner Theo is kidnapped while vacationing on the planet Clancer by his estranged evil brother who just so happens to be the planet’s emperor. So, in true video game fashion, you’re thrust into a colourful world packed to the brim with crazy, where you end up fighting with the planet’s resistance in an effort to save Theo and, eventually, the entire planet.
Oh. And you also end up winning the planet’s Olympic games (which includes such luminary athletics as “dodgeball” and “math”). And you fight some weird anthropomorphized version of the Power Rangers. And I think in one level you hunt ghosts. And the world’s inhabitants look like this:
Upon first glance at Mischief Makers one knows they’re in for something strange. The colour palette could faithfully be called “eye-searing”, while Marina’s main form of attack is grabbing characters or items, and vigorously shaking them. She even says “Shake shake” while doing so!
You’ll traverse from inappropriately-styled theme parks, to Volcanoes, to snowy mountain villages (where, if you want, you can beat up the innkeeper for gems and then go play jump-rope), to crazy aerial battles with precious little to connect it all together. But it didn’t matter, because a great deal of what was compelling you forward was to find out just where the hell you’d end up doing next.
In short, it was magical. You would play this game with no idea as to what could possibly be around the corner. And, chances were, what ended up happening was something you never would’ve been able to guess.
What in the hell is going on here?
More importantly, Mischief Makers was more fun than it had any right to be. The grab-and-shake mechanics seemed odd as all hell, but worked surprisingly well for the action-adventure genre.
And while the over-arching story may be too many doses of twee and silly, the individual scenes and dialogue were downright impossible not to watch. Why is that giant ape-monster trying to get me to join its fan club? Why is that creepy old man sexually harassing that robot? And are those vehicles forming together Voltron-style to create a giant robot? Why, I believe they just might be:
No, seriously, what in the hell is going on here?
Which is why it’s sad to say that MM never really managed to hit it off, with either the public or the critics. It averaged 70 on metacritic, which by all accounts is pretty alright, but in this era of a “8-or-higher-or-you’re-fired” game review mentality, it may as well have averaged 40.
There’s also the fact that, for some odd reason, a cartoon game in the 90’s about a female robot shaking her way to a revolution just didn’t hit the gamer zeitgeist like you’d hope. To be sure Mischief Makers has a strong cult following, of which I’m definitely a member, but if you’re one of the many who never gave this game a chance you sorely missed out.
