Format: Advance
Genre: Adventure
Developer: Artificial Mind & Movement
Publisher: Midway

A nondescript game from ages past, this title has nothing to do with any of the bug movies of the 90's. Most likely this game was created to try and cash in on that bug fad that ANTZ created though. The gameplay is akin to a topdown zelda style, think minish cap. At first you can't do much at all, but eventually you get a run feature and a "sword". The real pity and shame of this game is that there's never truly enough combat and the hitboxes aren't really all there to deal with combat in the first place. I'd classify this as more of a puzzler game than an action game. The few spots of action in the game make it memorable in some very specific ways. You know you did something right when riding a caterpillar reminds you of contra. Switching over to the storyline for a minute, this game has a very dated and unique view or two. To begin, the story is the basic "human thrown into ant world" scenario. Lucas "The Destroyer" is shrunk down by ant magic and they enslave him to be an ant for their queen "Hova". Lucas is then sent on several missions to do some basic things like saving ants, fighting off wasps, or gathering the seven magic dragonballs. This game has quite a lot of slapstick comedy packed into it's text. The goal of lucas is more or less to survive and become normal size again. What's truly interesting about this game though is the bosses. This game has a few bosses, all of which are highly custom. That is to say that they are things you wouldn't expect and go to show just how inventive this game truly could have been. The turret parts bring about the feelings that you're playing a contra game rather than a 3rd party game about ants. The music in this game is pretty interesting as well. I won't say the music fits the mood of each area/theme, but it's clearly a step up from tried and true strategy of slapping a song into the system and hoping it works. The biggest issue with this game that I've experienced was the constant crashing. Yes, that's right, the game crashed... multiple times. I'm not really sure why, how, or if it was canon to the actual game or just might setup crashing it, but I had quite a few crashes that left me befuddled as to why or what was causing it. If this game had just invested a bit more time into refining it's hitboxes and upped the combat in the game, it could have been a minish cap knockoff. Save Anywhere.

All in All, This game scored a 7.5 for itself. The threat of crashing really dragged the score down. A lot of running about with not much interaction. Hitboxes could be a lot better. x100 fire crystal prize wasn't worth it. Tight mechanic requirements on some parts with loose controls.