His design is much better in the game, trust me.
“Frogger’s Adventures: Temple of the Frog” was released for the Gameboy Advance (GBA) in November 2001 by Konami, who developed Contra, Castlevania, and more. However, Konami Software Shanghai and Konami Computer Entertainment Hawaii/America developed "Temple of the Frog," which did not work on Contra nor Castlevania.
In fact, "Temple of the Frog" was Konami Software Shanghai's first game, at least under that name. These two developers would work on a variety of games. Konami Computer Entertainment Hawaii/America would develop the "Frogger" games from "Temple of the Frog" up to "Toy Trials."
"Frogger," released in 1981, and is one of the most iconic arcade games for its simple yet addicting gameplay. The "Frogger" Series still has games released, even to this day.
The 1990’s and 2000’s was when a lot of experimentation took place to modernize "Frogger," resulting in games of varying quality. "Temple of the Frog" was the first of the “Frogger’s Adventures” Series of games, before the Adventures title was later dropped.
The Review
“Frogger’s Adventures: Temple of the Frog” has Frogger stopping the evil plans of Mr. D, Death through his hops. When I say hops, I mean it, Frogger only hops, even on the overworld map.
He just won't stop.
Like the arcade games, "Temple of the Frog" works on a tile grid system where Frogger hops from one tile to the other to make progress. However, instead of crossing lakes and streets, Frogger traverses through places like underwater cities.
Frogger can turn directions in place to hop to where he needs to go. He can also do a hop that travels two tiles and over the tile in front of him. This is used to jump over enemies and pits, which the game uses well.
Enemies are obstacles that don’t attack Frogger, but they can kill him in one hit if he touches them. Don't worry though, there are ways to dodge them. Checkpoints also help keep levels challenging without making them frustrating.
The gameplay, while simple, is a fantastic way of modernizing the Frogger formula. It's fun, well-designed, and challenging but fair. The level design and visuals are great and compliment Frogger's mechanics beautifully.
Each level has unique, funky music too. Goblin Caverns 2, Ancient Ruins 1, Sea Town 1, and so on sound amazing.
Frogger can collect butterflies to get an extra life. Butterflies can also be collected with his tongue, but that’s all the tongue is for.
If the extra lives are ignored, the tongue is useless. The tongue needed to have more uses, with the way it is, it's just kind of there.
Levels are beaten when the player reaches the end with three or five elemental orbs. The player can always backtrack to earlier parts of the level if they miss any elemental orbs, but some levels...
Make it tricky to backtrack. Thankfully, the elemental orbs are easy to find.
Coins can also be found in the levels but are only for gaining entry to the final levels of the game. There's no shop to buy anything with them or other purpose to them, which the part-time capitalist in me finds to be a shame.
As for the bosses, they're neat for what they are but nothing remarkable. They're easy and require minimal strategy. Only the final boss stands out for testing everything the player has learned throughout the journey.
Finally, the game is far too short, and lacks replay value. It only takes less than two hours to 100 per cent the game. This isn’t too bad as nowadays since it’s easy to find a copy between $2 to $5 online. However, for a GBA game that was bought around $15-$30 when my parents got it, that price is quite outrageous for the content.
Overall (A-)
“Frogger’s Adventures: Temple of the Frog” is a great game. The controls are great, the music is catchy, the presentation is neat, the game’s difficulty is balanced, and the mechanics are superb.
However, there are faults: the underutilization of the tongue mechanic, the game’s length, and lack of replayability. It’s short, but sweet.
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