Developed by Hunters
Released for XBLIG (12/2011)
マイケルの不思議な冒険, which on the title card has the English subtitle Mysterious Adventure of Michael (so from here on out we'll refer to the game as that) is a Japanese-developed release for XBLIG. The game is an obvious Super Mario Bros rip-off and I found myself surprised to see that the first stage was actually kind of playable (though of course nowhere near as good as Mario). Similar to the Mario games it wants to imitate, the game has the coin blocks you can jump into, bricks you can smash and turtles you can send flying across the screen by jumping on top of them.
You play as Michael, a bear who is apparently asleep and dreaming all of this. My initial surprise of the quality of the game came to an abrupt halt once I made it to the second stage. Right at the beginning of the level you're required to jump across a large pit using a block that launches you higher than your normal jump would (these are comparable to the music notes in Super Mario Bros 3). The problem is that the blocks don't automatically launch you when you jump on them. As far as I can tell, you have to press up at the same time you land on the brick. Regardless, after several attempts to get across this gap I had to give up on the game in frustration. Mysterious Adventure of Michael is indeed a mysterious title & had the difficulty not ramped up so quick I may have been more obliged to see some more of what it had to offer, though something deep down inside tells me I'm not missing much.
Final Verdict: Mysterious Adventure of Michael is a poor-man's Super Mario Bros, so if you enjoy inferior knock-offs of more popular games you might get something out of this one.
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