Sunday, May 19, 2024

PrinceWatercress plays Widget - Part 1 of 4


Widget seems like something that wouldn't be made into a video game, but then again, so was Captain Planet. The only difference is that Widget had a few games that were halfway decent.


Remember Widget? You probably don't, but it was one of those children's television shows from the early 1990s in America where the order of the day was saving the environment and telling the kids to do the same, much like with Captain Planet. Just like with the television show, you'll be saving the environment in five stages, and while the game is rather short, you will be backtracking to get more health and magic.

Stage 1: Mega Slank


When you start the screen, you'll go straight to the map screen. While there's a map, only the first stage is available until you complete it; when you do, other stages open up.

When you start the stage, the high elders will task Widget with protecting Earth and give him his first assignment. In the first stage, Mega Slank form the planet Titanium is hypnotizing and forcing innocent people to do his dirty work, and Widget is tasked with investigating what is going on.

Left and Right move left and right, and Down ducks. A jumps, B fires the gun, and Up in conjunction with B fires upwards at a slight angle, which allows you to hit things that are flying.

At the bottom, you have your Life and Magic Points. Losing all your life causes you to lose a life and go back to a certain point depending on how far you've gone. Magic Points are used for your transformations, and the only one you have is the cannon form, which uses 2 MP. You'll get more forms as you beat stages. To the right of that are the two gauges for your gun: top for speed, and bottom for strength. By filling these gauges, the gun's bullets get faster and more powerful. That is followed by your current amount of lives, your current score, and the amount of time you have left.

To use forms, you'll need to press Select, then press A on the form you want to transform into. Pressing B lets you stay as/turn back to normal Widget. Cannon Widget can jump straight up, aim up and down with the Control Pad and shoot with the B button, but I end up never using it.

The green enemies with the four arms will advance when you attack it, but they go down in a few hits. In this game, enemies do not have invincibility frames, and because of this, you can wail on them endlessly until they die if you're in close.

The crocodiles will fire arrows at your current position, and you'll need to avoid those bullets while returning fire yourself.

There is a green star below you at the bottom. It allows you to power up the strength of your gun, but you'll need the Mouse Widget form in order to get it, and you'll need to beat Stage 1 in order to get it.

The mosquitos go down in a few hits, and aiming upwards makes taking them down easier. The worms take a few shots to take down.

When you reach the end of the first section, you'll need to jump into the pipe to get further. The ghosts that move back and forth go down in a few hits. Also, you can find coins. Small coins are worth 500 points, while the big ones are worth 1000. You won't find them very much.

To get past the crocodiles between the bottomless pits, you'll need to jump the pits and then immediately move towards them. When you get hit in this game, you'll have Castlevania-style knockback, and if you get hit too close to the pits, you're falling in, losing a life and going back a bit.

Sometimes enemies will drop things like coins, hearts and orbs. Hearts will refill a few hit points, while orbs refill a few magic points.

The blue circle icon refills your MP.

To climb ladders, just get above or below them and hold Up and/or down when necessary.

The burger enemies take a few hits to defeat. Be sure to keep firing to take them down as quickly as possible. To get the red star in the first section, there is a fake wall you can go through, and the fake wall segments can be identified if you look closely enough (in this case, the left parts are darker and not dithered). The red star increases your health by two units.

The green gun speeds up the shots from your gun. You'll find these more often than the green stars, of which there are only two in the game.

To get the blue star across the pit, you'll need the Bird Man form, which you get for beating Stage 3. The blue star increases your MP by two units.

In the last section, watch out near the ends of the conveyor belts that move you around for flying mosquitos. You can also find a gun icon here as well as another red star. Thankfully, enemies do not re-spawn when you defeat them, so you can clear them out ahead of time and take care of stuff where necessary.

The boss here is Mega Slank. To beat him, avoid him as he runs, fires and moves around. If you can get close to him and repeatedly fire at him, you can destroy him. As for the blue star here, you'll also need the Bird-Man form to get it.

When you beat Mega Slank, the people that he hypnotized will return to normal. You'll also get the Mouse Widget form, which you can use to get through narrow passages, move quickly, jump very far and find secrets at the cost of 3 MP.

If you press Select and select Mega-Brain, you can see the map for the current section you are in and your current position, you can get advice on certain things, and you can also use the "Escape" function to leave the stage and get back to the map screen regardless of whether you have beaten the stage or not.

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