Whomp ’Em Review (Nintendo, 1991)

I was just thinking to myself the other day “self, why haven’t more developers made Mega Man clones?” Then I remembered Whomp ‘Em. This is a title that I rented once as a kid because rentals were a rarity, and the back cover of the box looked interesting to me. This was before my days of playing Mega Man, and I gave it a shot. The thing is I barely remember playing it. That’s pretty rare for me considering that I usually rented games more than once, but with Whomp ‘Em I drew a total blank. I heard around on the internet that it was a Mega Man clone, but if that was the case I’m sure I would have some memories surrounding it. Curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to seek it out to add to my collection. After giving it a recent play I can see why I forgot all about it. Whomp ‘Em isn’t painfully bad, but it’s not all that good either.

What sets Whomp ‘Em apart from most games of its time (and even now) is the fact that the protagonist is a native American. You play as a young brave named Soaring Eagle, and he has been challenged to complete a series of trials to prove himself to the tribal elders. The game deserves some major props for its unique setting and story. Whomp ‘Em is a fairly traditional side scrolling platform game. Soaring Eagle apparently doesn’t have the stone feet that Mario does as he cannot defeat enemies by stomping on them. Instead he relies entirely on his spear. This also means that his attack is limited in range, but thankfully you can attack upwards and downwards while jumping. Speaking of which, Soaring Eagle has the same mad hops as Mario, and so reaching faraway platforms isn’t such a big problem. Because of the native American setting you won’t be battling futuristic robots, and instead enemies based on animals of the natural world.

That’s a nice change of pace, but I compared this to Mega Man, and now it’s time to point out the similarities. After completing the initial stage you can choose to play through the next six in any order. What’s cool is that they’re all named so as to fit the theme. You have the Sacred Woods, Secret Cliff, Fire Test, Ice Ritual, Magic Forest, Water Test, and Final Test. This wasn’t originally a native American themed game when released in Japan, but the localization staff did a pretty good job in the conversion. As with Mega Man completing a stage grants you an ability related to the level’s theme. This is where Whomp ‘Em falls short. To start this off you switch techniques by pressing the start button instead of select. That’s off putting to say the least. The new skills don’t have an energy bar and can be used infinitely. That would be a pro except for the fact that they’re mostly useless. These weapons range from almost useless to serving only a few uses. For the most part they won’t damage enemies. That’s a poor design choice because the weapons are so selective. I just stuck with the traditional spear because I didn’t know what would, and wouldn’t work in each situation. There’s no clear outline, and the most useful techniques (the cloud, and throwing spear) allowed you either to access out of range power ups or bypass obstacles.

Usually having more than one weapon at your disposal makes things interesting, but as I mentioned they’re all virtually useless. The best situations are when a boss is weak against one of the items (totems) that you’ve acquired, but even this isn’t common within the game. The developers would have been better off had they not included additional weapons, because I was left disappointed by this system. What makes up for this somewhat are the power-ups. Soaring Eagle starts with only a few hearts on his life bar, but this is increased by collecting gourds. These are usually hidden fairly well, and reaching these is really the only benefit to the powers he gains. Additionally you will find little spear icons that increase the reach of your primary attack. The other power-ups are defensive in nature and either protect Soaring Eagle from taking damage for a specific number of hits, or render him invincible for a short period of time. These mix things up a bit, but they don’t make up for the limited usefulness of your acquired weapons.

Whomp ‘Em started life as a Japanese styled game. I just wanted to get that out of the way so that I can point out how good of a job the publisher did to befit the native American theme. All of the environments feel very organic compared to most of the platformers of the time, and the natural elements are a nice touch. It makes Whomp ‘Em unique in the sea of mascot based games. The graphic engine is very capable by NES standards; there’s a fair amount of slowdown but it’s never debilitating. At the same time Whomp ‘Em suffers from more flickering, and I had a hard time tracking where my character was when he takes damage or when too many enemies were on-screen. Now when I said I didn’t remember anything about the game that’s not entirely true; the music really scared me when I played it early in the morning. I can see why because the music is extremely dark and morbid. This is one way in which the game betrays its theme, but it’s still memorable. At the same time none of the singular tracks are particularly memorable.

This game is pure disappointment. It has pretty decent level design, but it’s a Mega Man clone. Therefore I’m going to compare it to Mega Man. The powers you gain from each of the stages are completely boring. Even if you took the worst Mega Man bosses, and put them in a room, you would have way better mechanics than this. With that said Whomp ‘Em’s level designs, unusual theme, and haunting soundtrack keep this one from scoring mediocre. It’s not a classic but Whomp ‘Em is worth playing once.