Retro Love: Catrap

Also known like Pitman, this jigsaw puzzle of Game Boy did not obtain the whole reputation that it was deserving. Although it was not a game that was shining either for his technical paragraph or his jugabilidad, was offering the opportunity to experience in a different way the genre. With a couple that remains semi-transformed into cat by a curse, the odyssey begins of overcoming 100 screens that Catrap offers us, with the only help of the temporary regression and our force to break blocks. Some of the spiritual parents of Braid and a game that there deserves a retro love as god it is in charge.

The desarrolladora behind this interesting cartridge was Asmik Corporation, a company that did not shine precisely for the good one to do of his works, therefore it is quite understandable that I dress the seen, Catrap was ending up by happening unnoticed for big part of the players. It was running the year 1990 when the above mentioned company decided to carry the idea that it had created five years behind for personal computer, where if it obtained a certain recognition. The father of the creature was a Yutaka Isokawa, who saw as the game was well received in one of those mythical magazines on computers Sharp of the epoch.

As I commented already, this feline couple will have to complete 100 levels to be human beings again and will escape of the curse to which they have been condemned. For it we will have to squeeze the brain and manage to destroy all the enemies of every screen, basic premise to complete every level. The problem is that to obtain this task, normally we will have to continue a series of prearranged steps, and that of not be fulfilling appropriately it will drag us to a situation without solution, impossible to resolve. It is here when the temporary regression enters game.

To today there are numeroros the games that have seen in the use of the time an opportunity to provide his gameplay of certain freshness. One of the examples that better represents the concept is Braid, but already in the 80, Catrap was printing on his game a practically identical characteristic. Touching the button A we would step back in the time, redoing all our movements to place ourselves in the situation that we wish and to escape this way of the pitfall in which we fell down. With the button B we were moving forward the time, if we were considering opportune to place ourselves again in a situation to which we had come and now yes we think coherent.

The Catrap base is therefore quite direct, although behind these simple points there were hiding well thought-out screens that they could bring to us for the street of the bitterness. The thing was complicated moreover when new elements were entering action, like for example enemies who were astonish in the air or there were appearing levels that needed the use of two personages. Touching the button select we were changing one to other and it was essential to make them placed in a strategic way so that with his partner we were managing to gain access to a certain enemy or place.

When two personages were used in the same stage, one cannot avoid to think about qualifications as Lost Vikings or Abe Odyssey, where sometimes the cooperation with other partners was vital to overcome a level. It is for it that after the maelstrom of references on that surjen, after throwing a few games to Catrap, you reflect on the reputation acquired by some games and the negligence in which there fall down others that do not deserve it. If Catrap had belonged to an important company and had had a publicity minimum we would be speaking about one of the most mythical games of the console.

Also, the cartridge was including the possibility of creating your own levels, although it was an option that was not exploited completely, it was always of being grateful. 100 screens were available from the beginning, therefore we did not have to overcome them in any pre-established order, although it was essential to familiarize itself with the first ones to understand the game concept. A passwords system was facilitating to us the task of keeping the completed phases if we were extinguishing the console.

With this retro love I would like to claim the reputation that this juegazo was deserving and I feel realized if only some of you decides to give him an opportunity. I can make sure you that it hooks enough and to complete 100 levels it is an entertaining challenge if you like the genre. If disfrutásteis with Braid you should not allow meeting his grandfather.