By Joseph "Skull Vault" Walter
As I briefly mentioned in the article, Mischief Makers is one of the stranger (albeit excellent) games on the system, and has developed something of a cult following.
Visually, the game is covered with eerie, undulating faces. Sonically, the music is high-class but uses curious instruments. Gameplay-wise, you're tasked with things like riding trikes and shaking the hell out of everyone and everything.
Now, I loved this game as a kid and I love it now, but all that weirdness must have gotten to me at some point, because certain aspects of it started to creep me out.
While most of those feelings were irrational and quickly forgotten, there was one sequence so bizarre and so frightfully eerie, that it has stuck with me ever since.
That sequence is, of course, the "Toadly Raw" boss battle.
And then things get weird.
The frog just sits in the middle of the screen, breathing rapidly, and the already dark cavern darkens even further. Lightning strikes and the frog laughs.
The frog fucking laughs.
And this is no normal laugh. It's some super-high-pitched insanity-fueled cackle.
Then a little man riding on a little cloud appears, and starts dancing. Dancing, I say!
Your senses are overwhelmed by just how God damned weird everything has become, and you get scared. Your biological instincts kick in. Your brain has not evolved to the point where it can handle whatever the hell is happening on the screen.
I... I'm sorry. I have to go now.
You really should give Mischief Makers a shot, but beware the nightmarish doom that awaits with laughing toads, dancing men and miniature rain clouds.