Wandering Hamster (2009 Update)
A Review by Red Maverick Zero
Download here
Wandering Hamster has
definitely been classified as one of, if not THE best OHR game to come
out, and it's been over ten years since its last update up until
recently. Having not played the game in at least three to four years, I
decided to give it my own retrospective review, while going over the
new content.
Wandering Hamster is your
typical OHR game. It feels very much like it is one of the first OHR
games made, and by stacking the new features next to the old, it really
shows. Maptiles are great, and give off a very cartoony feel, and the
sprites do as well. My only complaint about the graphics is, because
the portraits look so nice, it diminishes some of the flair the hero
sprites and walkabouts used to give. Don't get me wrong, it's still
great looking, but right now it just feels like the portrait doesn't
match the sprite. Characters don't really animate outside of battle, as
mentioned before, this is basically one of the first OHR games, and it
does show. Going backwards and adding some animations to certain cut
scenes would definitely boost the flair of this game. Another complaint
I would make about this game is that the art style kind of changes
between sprites. Some characters look significantly more polished than
others, whereas some look very beginner-ish. Bob the Hamster's hero
sprite lacks a bit of his... personality, same for James, whereas the
cats have their personality in their attacks and in their stances. The
differences among graphics is mostly among enemies. Some enemies are
drawn with a black outline around them, others use the color outlines
like the rest of the sprites. For the most part, the game doesn't fall
victim to "palette swap" enemies, in the respect that there is a huge
variety of enemies to fight. There may be three or four that are just
palette swapped at the most.
Not trying to dog this game by all means, because however old school it
feels, it does it very well, despite being compared with new features
and content. James Paige obviously cares a lot about this game, because
he's made it very detailed. It's nothing super over the top, it's the
little things that make you appreciate it. Going into the monastery and
finding a book in the church pew, animating carrots planted into the
ground, and the fact that there are so many little things to do in the
game, and so many people to talk to.
The music for this game is quite remarkable. I think most of it is
original. And it gives the game a great vibe. Battle music is upbeat
and makes it a bit less annoying to be in a random battle (it'll still
get on your nerves though, ha!). The game does use a few tracks that
came packaged with the OHR a while ago. Some tracks sound kind of weak,
some are, as said, pretty damn great. Broaste's castle theme doesn't
feel nearly as dark and epic as I would have hoped for.
The beginning of the game rather drags out and is boring to be honest.
You appear on the world map, visit James, and James makes you run an
errand. The entire errand forces you to go through the forest and talk
to people, then walk all the way back. For a beginning of a game, it
sure wasn't very exciting and didn't hold my attention that well. Once
the game does start to pick up, it is very clever and fun. Lord Hasim's
castle was very well done, and had a nice structure to it, in the fact
that there were multiple floors, and your typical castle stuff. A
dungeon, tower, throne room, etc. The most disappointing area of the
entire game was definitely the mountains. It just felt poorly planned
out, in the respect that you walk casually around in one map to get to
the other side. Granted that is what you are supposed to do, and I know
this is beginning content, but it just feels very blah. A lot of the
dungeons don't have any "real" puzzles or anything, it's mostly about
getting through the dungeon and facing as many bad guys as you can. At
least in the castle areas, you had to save someone, or fight something.
Other dungeons, such as the forest or mountains, are just humongous
maps with a really high encounter rate.
Now, for the moment we've been waiting for! After YEARS and YEARS and
YEARS of waiting, we finally get new content!
When most of us last saw Bob the Hamster, he had been tricked by his
feline companions and tied up and used as BAIT! Yes, we were as
surprised as Bob was about this one. The cats tried to defeat the
enormous snake, but once Bob was swallowed and they were knocked out,
they ran like... scaredy cats! Thus, we left Bob in the dreadful belly
of the Jormungandling snake...
Alone in the stomach of the beast, Bob ventures through. As mentioned
before, the dungeons in Wandering
Hamster are typically dungeon crawlers with loads of battles.
For the beginning of this section area, it falls victim to that. You
float across stomach acid on red blood cells, and you even see some
ducks who were swallowed up as well. They'll even sell you a nifty pair
of socks. After you crawl around through the dungeon even more, you're
face off against your first real challenge, so stock up on those
Rutabagas.
The boss was definitely the most interesting opponent thus far in the
game. Since most enemies are just there to beat you up, while you
pummel and heal. This boss you fight solo, and it summons different
enemies. The white ones will attack you, and the red ones heal the
boss. The very clever thing about this boss is that on regular attacks
it would summon the red, and then when you use a skill it summoned the
white. This was it's primary attack, as it by itself is rather weak.
Definitely a bit more strategy went into facing this boss.
When the boss was over, you actually get to play what James had teased
us with a year or two ago, and that's a miniature golf minigame. It
took a bit of getting used to, but it was actually incredibly fun.
Charge up your swing and stand at the right angle to knock the ball...
Oh well you guys know how to play golf. James even programmed in some
rolling barrels to try and stop the ball. All in all, this dungeon felt
like the most thought out and well planned part of the game so far.
You'll eventually see a sunken ship and fight a crazy barbarian who
talks as weirdly as he looks, if not weirder. It was pretty funny, and
I'm fairly certain everything he says is a nod towards Fenrir
Lunaris' Vikings of Midgard
since he references Olaf the Barabarian, and the Gods of the game. His
character definitely has the most personality of any other character in
the game, next to Bob. Gisli also plays very uniquely in battle. I'm
certain, without opening the file in custom, that I know how his
berserk attack works, and it's very ingenious for this type of
character. He'll use swords, and I'm guessing axes, maces and other
heavy blunt objects. Sadly all I had for him was a sword in my
inventory. It would have been nice for him to have had his weapon
lodged into the belly of the beast and you and Bob had to snag it out
as an extra thing to do.
The demo ends with Gisli and Bob bursting out of the Jormungandling
Serpent on Gisli's viking ship, which sails proudly over the ocean, and
then... as quickly as they got out of one disaster, Bob and
Gisli plummet into another! The viking ship sinks, and the two are
underwater. The underwater area is very well detailed from what I've
seen, and there actually are enemies and quite a few maptiles drawn
out. Water bubbles rise up, and there are even fish floating around.
Maybe if we're lucky, James can put Bob Surlaw and Walrus Man somewhere
in this place as a sidequest? I mean, they are marine animals. I guess
we shouldn't push our luck.
All in all, I would say Wandering
Hamster doesn't hold nearly as well for me as it did years ago.
It feels very old fashioned, and not exactly in the best way. The
characters and their charm are what hold this game together. As long as
it's been in production, Wandering
Hamster still feels like it's prepping itself to take off and
become an even grander adventure. The plot is still fairly basic, as
it's still "Bob is wandering the world", which is what the game is
called, but are there going to be recurring villains, or a more solid
plot? Right now, Bob just journeys and meets a rag tag group of
characters who never fail to make us laugh. Are we going to get a more
fleshed out role playing story, or will it still be the same wandering
type game? The game is still trying to figure this out it seems. The
new content is roughly thirty minutes, give or take, and for the amount
of time we've been waiting for a significant update, it kind of leaves
me with a sour taste in my mouth. Hopefully future new content will be
as detailed and thought as the belly of the snake, and we can hope for
more frequent updates to this. We want to see the ending of this game
as badly as James does (and Bob!)
